Avarice misapprehends itself almost always. There is no passion which more often will miss its aim, nor upon which the present has so much influence to the prejudice of the future.

Nature makes merit, and fortune puts it to work.

Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence.

We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.

In order to succeed in the world people do their upmost to appear successful.

The greatest miracle of love is the cure of coquetry.

It is a mighty error to suppose that none but violent and strong passions, such as love and ambition, are able to vanquish the rest. Even idleness, as feeble and languishing as it is, sometimes reigns over them; it usurps the throne and sits paramount over all the designs and actions of our lives, and imperceptibly wastes and destroys all our passions and all our virtues.