Nature makes merit, and fortune puts it to work.

We are always bored by the very people by whom it is vital not to be bored.

Whatever distrust we may have of the sincerity of those who converse with us, we always believe they will tell us more truth than they do to others.

The only good copies are those which make us see the absurdity of bad originals.

The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve.

In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that offer.

Men are often so foolish as to boast and value themselves upon their passions, even those that are most vicious. But envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that no one every ever had the confidence to own it.