A woman often thinks she regrets the lover, when she only regrets the love.

The art of putting into play mediocre qualities often begets more reputation than is achieved by true merit.

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.

Death and the sun are not to be looked at steadily.

What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.

We exaggerate the glory of some men in order to detract from that of others.

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