We exaggerate the glory of some men in order to detract from that of others.

True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.

Humility is the worst form of conceit.

All women seem by nature to be coquettes.

There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing.

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.

The passions do very often give birth to others of a nature most contrary to their own. Thus avarice sometimes brings forth prodigality, and prodigality avarice; a man's resolution is very often the effect of levity, and his boldness that of cowardice and fear.