Even the most disinterested love is, after all, but a kind of bargain, in which self-love always proposes to be the gainer one wayor another.

A clever man reaps some benefit from the worst catastrophe, and a fool can turn even good luck to his disadvantage.

Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence.

There are heroes of wickedness, as there are of goodness.

It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.

Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.

Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.