Self-love increases or diminishes for us the good qualities of our friends, in proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them; and we judge of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us.

The heart of man ever finds a constant succession of passions, so that the destroying and pulling down of one proves generally tobe nothing else but the production and the setting up of another.

No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.

If there be a love pure and free from the admixture of our other passions, it is that which lies hidden in the bottom of our heart, and which we know not ourselves.

The force we use on ourselves, to prevent ourselves from loving, is often more cruel than the severest treatment at the hands of one loved.

It is not enough that we should succeed, but our friends must fail as well.

We are almost always wearied in the company of persons with whom we are not permitted to be weary.