How can we be answerable for what we shall want in the future, since we have no clear idea of what we want now?

The distempers of the soul have their relapses, as many and as dangerous as those of the body; and what we take for a perfect cureis generally either an abatement of the same disease or the changing of that for another.

We speak little if not egged on by vanity.

When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate.

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

The greatest of all gifts is the power to estimate things at their true worth

There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.