Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.

Things often offer themselves to our mind in a more finished form in the very first thought, than we might have made them by muchart and study.

A man often believes himself leader when he is led; as his mind endeavors to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards another.

When a man is in love, he doubts, very often, what he most firmly believes.

Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone.

Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge.