We often persuade ourselves to love people who are more powerful than we are, yet interest alone produces our friendship; we do not give our hearts away for the good we wish to do, but for that we expect to receive.

Commonplace minds usually condemn what is beyond the reach of their understanding.

There are many predicaments in life that one must be a bit crazy to escape from.

The greatest part of our faults are more excusable than the methods that are commonly taken to conceal them.

Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them.

Sincerity is a certain openness of heart. It is to be found in very few, and what we commonly look upon to be so is only a cunningsort of dissimulation, to insinuate ourselves into the confidence of others.

The evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our good qualities.