Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy which fixes our hearts successively to all the qualities of the person loved--sometimes admiring one and sometimes another above all the rest--so that this constancy roves as far as it can, and is no better than inconstancy, confined within the compass of one person.

There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us and others who please us in spite of their faults.

To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.

The happiness and unhappiness of men depends as much on their ethics as on fortune.

Flattery is a counterfeit money which, but for vanity, would have no circulation.

It is as commendable to think well of oneself when alone, as it is ridiculous to speak well of oneself among others.

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