What often prevents our abandoning ourselves to a single vice is, our having more than one.

Love has its name borrowed by a great number of dealings and affairs that are attributed to it--in which it has no greater part than the Doge in what is done at Venice.

Numberless arts appear foolish whose secret motives are most wise and weighty.

We sometimes imagine we hate flattery, but we only hate the way we are flattered.

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.

We often do shallow good in order to accomplish evil with impunity.

The health of the soul is something we can be no more sure of than that of the body; and though a man may seem far from the passions, yet he is in as much danger of falling into them as one in a perfect state of health of having a fit of sickness.