The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

There is scarcely any man sufficiently clever to appreciate all the evil he does.

Some men are like ballads, that are in everyone's mouth a little while.

What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.

Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence.

Some beautiful things are more dazzling when they are still imperfect than when they have been too perfectly crafted.