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

Before strongly desiring anything, we should look carefully into the happiness of its present owner.

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

The smallest fault of women who give themselves up to love is to love.

Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking.

Boredom ... causes us to neglect more duties than does interest.

We always get bored with those whom we bore.