Never give anyone the advice to buy or sell shares, because the most benevolent price of advice can turn out badly.

The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.

When we enlarge upon the affection our friends have for us, this is very often not so much out of a sense of gratitude as from a desire to persuade people of our own great worth, that can deserve so much kindness.

It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.

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

What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.

Idiots and lunatics see only their own wit.