Fortune turns all things to the advantage of those on whom she smiles.

Kings do with men as with pieces of money; they give them what value they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current and not at their real value.

Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes.

There are good marriages, but there are no delightful ones.

We should only affect compassion, and carefully avoid having any.

Jealousy is the greatest of all evils, and the one that arouses the least pity in the person who causes it.

Nothing is so contagious as example; never was there any considerable good or ill done that does not produce its like. We imitate good actions through emulation, and had ones through a malignity in our nature, which shame conceals, and example sets at liberty.