Jealousy is always born with love, but does not die with it. In jealousy there is more of self-love than of love to another.

We often make use of envenomed praise, that reveals on the rebound, as it were, defects in those praised which we dare not exposeany other way.

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.

What keeps us from abandoning ourselves entirely to one vice, often, is the fact that we have several.

It is easier to understand mankind in general than any individual man.

The pleasure of love is in the loving; and there is more joy in the passion one feels than in that which one inspires.

When the philosophers despised riches, it was because they had a mind to vindicate their own merit, and take revenge upon the injustice of fortune by vilifying those enjoyments which she had not given them.