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

There are heroes in evil as well as in good.

The health of the soul is as precarious as that of the body; for when we seem secure from passions, we are no less in danger of their infection than we are of falling ill when we appear to be well.

It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.

They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones.

Those whom the world has delighted to honor have oftener been influenced in their doings by ambition and vanity than by patriotism.

The constancy of the wise is only the art of keeping disquietude to one's self.