We often act treacherously more from weakness than from a fixed motive.

Whatever distrust we may have of the sincerity of those who converse with us, we always believe they will tell us more truth than they do to others.

Youth is a perpetual intoxication; it is a fever of the mind.

Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.

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

There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.

Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.