Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.

However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.

The prospect of being pleased tomorrow will never console me for the boredom of today.

Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.

Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.

Fortune makes our virtues and vices visible, just as light does the objects of sight.

It is more often from pride than from defective understanding that people oppose established opinions: they find the best places taken in the good party and are reluctant to accept inferior ones.