He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it.

Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.

Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.

There is a sort of love whose very excessiveness prevents the lover's being jealous.

What makes vanity so insufferable to us, is that it hurts our own.

Tricks and treachery are merely proofs of lack of skill.

When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.