Fortune makes our virtues and vices visible, just as light does the objects of sight.

Extreme boredom provides its own antidote.

It is not always from valor or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste.

A man, in order to establish himself in the world, does everything he can to appear established there.

It is far better to be deceived than undeceived by those whom we tenderly love.

What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give.

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