We torment ourselves rather to make it appear that we are happy than to become so.

A respectable man may love madly, but not foolishly.

Happy people rarely correct their faults; they consider themselves vindicated, since fortune endorses their evil ways.

People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow her.

Generally speaking, we would make a good bargain by renouncing all the good that people say of us, upon condition they would say no ill.

Nothing ought in reason to mortify our self-satisfaction more that the considering that we condemn at one time what we highly approve and commend at another.

The love of new acquaintance comes not so much from being weary of what we had before, or from any satisfaction there is in change, as from the distaste we feel in being too little admired by those that know us too well, and the hope of being more admired by those that know us less.