A man does not please long when he has only species of wit.

We often select envenomed praise which, by a reaction upon those we praise, shows faults we could not have shown by other means.

Gratitude, in most men, is only a strong and secret hope of greater favors.

What renders other people's vanity insufferable is that it wounds our own.

To think to be wise alone is a very great folly.

We are deceived if we think that mind and judgment are two different matters: judgment is but the extent of the light of the mind. This light penetrates to the bottom of matters; it remarks all that can be remarked, and perceives what appears imperceptible. Therefore we must agree that it is the extent of the light in the mind that produces all the effects which we attribute to judgment.

The soul's maladies have their relapses like the body's. What we take for a cure is often just a momentary rally or a new form of the disease.