Vices are ingredients of virtues just as poisons are ingredients of remedies. Prudence mixes and tempers them and uses them effectively against life's ills.

Many men are contemptuous of riches; few can give them away.

Our self-love can less bear to have our tastes than our opinions condemned.

The desire to be thought clever often prevents a man from becoming so.

The constancy of sages is nothing but the art of locking up their agitation in their hearts.

Absence abates a moderate passion and intensifies a great one - as the wind blows out a candle but fans fire into flame.

It is as common for tastes to change as it is uncommon for traits of character.