History never embraces more than a small part of reality

The thing that makes our friendships so short and changeable is that the qualities and dispositions of the soul are very hard to know, and those of the understanding and wit very easy.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

It is easy to be wise on behalf of others than to be so for ourselves.

The older a fool is, the worse he is.

Even the most disinterested love is, after all, but a kind of bargain, in which self-love always proposes to be the gainer one wayor another.

Some reproaches praise; some praises reproach.