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

Treachery is more often the effect of weakness than of a formed design.

Politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts.

There is such a thing as a general revolution which changes the taste of men as it changes the fortunes of the world.

What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.

Sometimes we lose friends for whose loss our regret is greater than our grief, and others for whom our grief is greater than our regret.

There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade.