Simplicity is a delicate imposition.

We own up to minor failings, but only so as to convince others that we have no major ones.

There are fine things that are more brilliant when they are unfinished than when finished too much.

A man convinced of his own merit will accept misfortune as an honor, for thus can he persuade others, as well as himself, that he is a worthy target for the arrows of fate.

When our hatred is too alive puts us below what we hate.

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

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.