Envy is destroyed by true friendship, as coquetry by true love.

Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.

What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.

Praise is a more ingenious, concealed, and subtle kind of flattery, that satisfies both the giver and the receiver, though by verydifferent ways. The one accepts it as a reward due to his merit; the other gives it that he may be looked upon as a just and discerning person.

We are never so happy, nor so unhappy, as we suppose ourselves to be.

We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.

Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.