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

All men are equally proud. The only difference is that not all take the same methods of showing it.

Gratitude, in most men, is only a strong and secret hope of greater favors.

There are some faults which, when well managed, make a greater figure than virtue itself.

The most violent passions sometimes leave us at rest, but vanity agitates us constantly.

Confidence in conversation has a greater share than wit.

The distempers of the soul have their relapses, as many and as dangerous as those of the body; and what we take for a perfect cureis generally either an abatement of the same disease or the changing of that for another.