Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.

Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.

It may be said that the vices await us in the journey of life like hosts with whom we must successively lodge; and I doubt whether experience would make us avoid them if we were to travel the same road a second time.

The force we use on ourselves, to prevent ourselves from loving, is often more cruel than the severest treatment at the hands of one loved.

It is as common for tastes to change as it is uncommon for traits of character.

Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.

Fortunate persons hardly ever amend their ways: they always imagine that they are in the right when fortune upholds their bad conduct.