Moderation is like sobriety: you would like to have some more, but are afraid of making yourself ill.

Jealousy springs more from love of self than from love of another.

The surest proof of being endowed with noble qualities is to be free from envy.

There is no better proof of a man's being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men.

When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.

The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world.

We acknowledge that we should not talk of our wives; but we seem not to know that we should talk still less of ourselves.