Penetration has an air of divination; it pleases our vanity more than any other quality of the mind.

Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence.

What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.

We are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from others.

Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites.

We are better pleased to see those on whom we confer benefits than those from whom we receive them.

People would never fall in love if they hadn't heard love talked about.