Men's happiness and misery depends altogether as much upon their own humor as it does upon fortune.

Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too.

We should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not.

In their early passions women are in love with the lover, later they are in love with love.

We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it consists in a symmetry of which we know not the rules, and a secret conformity of the features to each other, as also to the air and complexion of the person.

Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.

Considering how little the beginning or the ceasing to love is in our own power, it is foolish and unreasonable for the lover or his mistress to complain of one another's inconstancy.