Instead of considering that the worst way to persuade or please others is to try thus strongly to please ourselves, and that to listen well and to answer well are some of the greatest charms we can have in conversation.

A woman often thinks she regrets the lover, when she only regrets the love.

Our repentances are generally not so much a concern and remorse for the harm we have done, as a fear of the harm we may have brought upon ourselves.

True bravery means doing alone that which one could do if all the world were by.

Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.

There are a great many simpletons who know themselves to be so, and who make a very cunning use of their own simplicity.

It is oftener by the estimation of our own feelings that we exaggerate the good qualities of others than by their merit, and when we praise them we wish to attract their praise.