True friendship destroys envy, and true love destroys coquetterie.

You are never so easily fooled as when trying to fool someone else.

Numberless arts appear foolish whose secret motives are most wise and weighty.

It is no tragedy to do ungrateful people favors, but it is unbearable to be indebted to a scoundrel.

There are heroes in evil as well as in good.

A man often thinks he rules himself, when all the while he is ruled and managed; and while his understanding directs one design, his affections imperceptibly draw him into another.

Kings do with men as with pieces of money; they give them what value they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current and not at their real value.