The contempt of riches in the philosophers was a concealed desire of revenging on fortune the injustice done to their merit, by despising the good she denied them.

Self-love, as it happens to be well or ill conducted, constitutes virtue and vice.

A respectable man may love madly, but not foolishly.

Vanity, shame, and above all disposition, often make men brave and women chaste.

The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.

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

What we take for virtue is often nothing but an assemblage of different actions, and of different interests, that fortune or our industry knows how to arrange.