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.

Fortune never appears so blind as to those to whom she does no good.

Of all our faults, the one we avow most easily is idleness; we persuade ourselves that it is allied to all the peaceable virtues,and as for the others, that it does not destroy them utterly, but only suspends the exercise of their functions.

There are more defects in temperament than in the mind.

There are some good marriages, but practically no delightful ones.

Sincerity is a certain openness of heart. It is to be found in very few, and what we commonly look upon to be so is only a cunningsort of dissimulation, to insinuate ourselves into the confidence of others.

Everyone agrees that a secret should be kept intact, but everyone does not agree as to the nature and importance of secrecy. Too often we consult ourselves as to what we should say, what we should leave unsaid. There are few permanent secrets, and the scruple against revealing them will not last forever.