Great men should not have great faults.

We love everything on our own account; we even follow our own taste and inclination when we prefer our friends to ourselves; and yet it is this preference alone that constitutes true and perfect friendship.

Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune.

Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.

We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.

If one judges love by the majority of its effects, it is more like hatred than like friendship.

The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.