It is a common fault never to be satisfied with our fortune, nor dissatisfied with our understanding.

Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily; and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.

No one thinks fortune so blind as those she has been least kind to.

The happiness and unhappiness of men depends as much on their ethics as on fortune.

The constancy of the wise is only the art of keeping disquietude to one's self.

Self-love, as it happens to be well or ill conducted, constitutes virtue and vice.

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