Of all our faults, the one we avow most easily is idleness; we persuade ourselves that it is allied to all the peaceable virtues,and as for the others, that it does not destroy them utterly, but only suspends the exercise of their functions.

Love is one and the same in the original; but there are a thousand different copies of it.

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.

Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.

The pleasure of love is in the loving; and there is more joy in the passion one feels than in that which one inspires.

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.

There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us and others who please us in spite of their faults.