Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.

We do not lack strength so much as the will to use it; and very often our imagining that things are impossible is nothing but an excuse of our own contriving, to reconcile ourselves to our own idleness.

It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.

The extreme pleasure we take in speaking of ourselves should make us apprehensive that it gives hardly any to those who listen to us.

One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.

The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.