As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.

We should wish for few things with eagerness, if we perfectly knew the nature of that which was the object of our desire.

We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.

Of all our faults, the one we avow most easily is idleness; we persuade ourselves that it is allied to all the peaceable virtues,and as for the others, that it does not destroy them utterly, but only suspends the exercise of their functions.

No accidents are so unlucky [bad] but that the wise may draw some advantage [good] from them.

In the human heart one generation of passions follows another; from the ashes of one springs the spark of the next.

What makes vanity so insufferable to us, is that it hurts our own.