True friendship destroys envy, and true love destroys coquetterie.

Almost everyone takes pleasure in repaying trifling obligations, very many feel gratitude for those that are moderate; but there is scarcely anyone who is not ungrateful for those that are weighty.

If it requires great tact to speak to the purpose, it requires no less to know when to be silent.

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.

We like to read others but we do not like to be read.

Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.

Of all our faults, the one that we excuse most easily is idleness.