Tastes in young people are changed by natural impetuosity, and in the aged are preserved by habit.

The desire of talking of ourselves, and showing those faults we do not mind having seen, makes up a good part of our sincerity.

If we did not have pride, we would not complain of it in others.

What men call friendship is no more than a partnership, a mutual care of interests, an exchange of favors - in a word, it is a sort of traffic, in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer.

It is as easy to deceive one's self without perceiving it, as it is difficult to deceive others without their finding out.

Even the most disinterested love is, after all, but a kind of bargain, in which self-love always proposes to be the gainer one wayor another.

There are few occasions when we should make a bad bargain by giving up the good on condition that no ill was said of us.