The health of the soul is as precarious as that of the body; for when we seem secure from passions, we are no less in danger of their infection than we are of falling ill when we appear to be well.

Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.

We cannot possibly imagine the variety of contradictions in every heart.

The aversion to lying is often a hidden ambition to render our words credible and weighty, and to attach a religious aspect to our conversation.

Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.

Familiarity is a suspension of almost all the laws of civility, which libertinism has introduced into society under the notion of ease.

We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.