We make promises to the extent that we hope-and keep them to the extent that we fear.
We have not enough strength to follow all our reason.
Nothing ought more to humiliate men who have merited great praise than the care they still take to boast of little things.
Nothing is rarer than real goodness.
Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
The secret of pleasing in conversation is not to explain too much everything; to say them half and leave a little for divination is a mark of the good opinion we have of others, and nothing flatters their self-love more.