To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.

In their early passions women are in love with the lover, later they are in love with love.

The moderation of men in the most exalted fortunes is a desire to be thought above those things that have raised them so high.

They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones.

We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.

Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us.

Politeness of mind consists in thinking chaste and refined thoughts.