It is much easier to seem fitted for posts we do not fill than for those we do.

The truest comparison we can make of love is to liken it to a fever; we have no more power over the one than the other, either as to its violence or duration.

There are few people more convinced of their own genius than those who complain of how stupid they are.

There is an excess both in happiness and misery above our power of sensation.

Perseverance is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy; for it seems to be only the enduring of certain inclinations and opinions which men neither give themselves nor take away from themselves.

When the philosophers despised riches, it was because they had a mind to vindicate their own merit, and take revenge upon the injustice of fortune by vilifying those enjoyments which she had not given them.

Generally speaking, we would make a good bargain by renouncing all the good that people say of us, upon condition they would say no ill.