What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.

Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.

People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow her.

A lofty mind always thinks nobly, it easily creates vivid, agreeable, and natural fancies, places them in their best light, clothes them with all appropriate adornments, studies others' tastes, and clears away from its own thoughts all that is useless and disagreeable.

Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being.

Whatever discoveries we may have made in the regions of self-love, there still remain many unknown lands.