The trust that we put in ourselves makes us feel trust in others.

The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy.

The health of the soul is as precarious as that of the body; for when we seem secure from passions, we are no less in danger of their infection than we are of falling ill when we appear to be well.

Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise.

The desire of talking of ourselves, and showing those faults we do not mind having seen, makes up a good part of our sincerity.

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.

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.