Without humility, we keep all our defects; and they are only crusted over by pride, which conceals them from others, and often from ourselves.

Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a luster which is easily effaced, but never returns.

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?

Vices are ingredients of virtues just as poisons are ingredients of remedies. Prudence mixes and tempers them and uses them effectively against life's ills.

It is easier to understand mankind in general than any individual man.

Some people are like popular songs that you only sing for a short time.

There is a sort of love whose very excessiveness prevents the lover's being jealous.