Our self-love can less bear to have our tastes than our opinions condemned.

All our qualities, whether good or bad, are unstable and ambiguous, and almost all are at the mery of chance.

The happiness and unhappiness of men depends as much on their ethics as on fortune.

It is difficult to like those whom we do not esteem; but it is no less so to like those whom we esteem more than ourselves.

A person well satisfied with themselves is seldom satisfied with others, and others, rarely are with them.

What makes false reckoning, as regards gratitude, is that the pride of the giver and the receiver cannot agree as to the value of the benefit.

Our greediness so often troubles us, making us run after so many things at the same time, that while we too eagerly look after the least we miss the greatest.