There are few people who would not be ashamed of being loved when they love no longer.

What makes lovers never tire of one another is that they talk always about themselves.

We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it; and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.

The whimsicalness of our own humor is a thousand times more fickle and unaccountable than what we blame so much in fortune.

The moderation of people in prosperity is the effect of a smooth and composed temper, owing to the calm of their good fortune.

The violence we do to ourselves in order to remain faithful to the one we love is hardly better than an act of infidelity.

There are more defects in temperament than in the mind.