In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.

Fortune mends more faults in us than ever reason would be able to do.

Sometimes there is equal or more ability in knowing how to use good advice than there is in giving it.

Smallness of mind is the cause of stubbornness, and we do not credit readily what is beyond our view.

It is the prerogative of great men only to have great defects.

What we take for virtue is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry knows how to arrange.

The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.