The best way to rise in society is to use all possible means of persuading people that one has already risen in society.

One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him.

A certain harmony should be kept between actions and ideas if we want to fully develop the effects they can produce.

Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongsto us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others.

Most men expose themselves in battle enough to save their honor, few wish to do so more than sufficiently, or than is necessary to make the design for which they expose themselves succeed.

It is not enough that we should succeed, but our friends must fail as well.

Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being.