The thing that makes our friendships so short and changeable is that the qualities and dispositions of the soul are very hard to know, and those of the understanding and wit very easy.

The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long.

L'absence diminue les mediocres passions, et augmente les grandes,comme le vent eteint les bougies, et allume le feu. Absence diminishes commonplace passions, and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and kindles fire.

Imagination could never invent the number of different contradictions that exist innately in each person's heart.

There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.

There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest, which makes us desire to know that which may be useful to us; and the other, from pride which comes from the wish to know what others are ignorant of.

Few things are needful to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies the fool; - and this is the reason why so many of mankind are miserable.