The measure of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.

Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.

The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve.

What we take for virtue is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry knows how to arrange.

Jealousy is not love, but self-love.

Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.