Self-interest speaks all manner of tongues and plays all manner of parts, even that of disinterestedness.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.

Nothing is more contagious than example, and no man does any exceeding good or exceeding ill but it spawns new deeds of the same kind. The good we imitate through emulation, the ill through the malignity of our nature, which shame keeps locked up, but example sets free.

We arrive at the various stages of life quite as novices.

To safeguard one's health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness, indeed.

Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.