Nature seems at each man's birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being.

The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second.

Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.

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

The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy.

Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests, and an exchange of good offices; it is a species of commerce out of which self-love always expects to gain something.

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.