We should not be upset that others hide the truth from us, when we hide it so often from ourselves.

Our good qualities expose us more to hatred and persecution than all the ill we do.

Those who are overreached by our cunning are far from appearing to us as ridiculous as we appear to ourselves when the cunning of others has overreached us.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

Vanity, shame, and above all disposition, often make men brave and women chaste.

The gallantry of the mind consists in agreeable flattery.

Kings do with men as with pieces of money; they give them what value they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current and not at their real value.