One is never as happy or as unhappy as one thinks.

How can we expect another to keep our secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves?

Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.

The more we love, the nearer we are to hate.

It is more difficult for a man to be faithful to his mistress when he is favored than when he is ill treated by her.

On why I don't trust democracy without extremely powerful systems of accountability and recall What seems to be generosity is often only disguised ambition - which despises small interests to gain great ones.

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.