Gallantry of mind consists in saying flattering things in an agreeable manner.

Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others.

It is more difficult for a man to be faithful to his mistress when he is favored than when he is ill treated by her.

The heart of man ever finds a constant succession of passions, so that the destroying and pulling down of one proves generally tobe nothing else but the production and the setting up of another.

There are some who never would have loved if they never had heard it spoken of.

Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests, and an exchange of good offices; it is a species of commerce out of which self-love always expects to gain something.

Whatever pretended causes we may blame our afflictions upon, it is often nothing but self-interest and vanity that produce them.