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.

The reason that lovers never weary each other is because they are always talking about themselves.

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.

One can no more look steadily at death than at the sun.

There are few people who are more often in the wrong than those who cannot endure to be so.

We are not fond of praising, and never praise any one except from interested motives. Praise is a clever, concealed, and delicate flattery, which gratifies in different ways the giver and the receiver. The one takes it as a recompense of his merit, and the other bestows it to display his equity and discernment.

As we grow older we grow both more foolish and wiser at the same time.