It is as easy to unknowingly deceive yourself as it is to deceive others.

We are always bored by the very people by whom it is vital not to be bored.

What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.

The man whom no one pleases is much more unhappy than the man who pleases no one.

The mind cannot long play the heart's role.

Very few people are acquainted with death. They undergo it, commonly, not so much out of resolution as custom and insensitivity; and most men die because they cannot help it.

It is more often from pride than from defective understanding that people oppose established opinions: they find the best places taken in the good party and are reluctant to accept inferior ones.