One cannot answer for his courage when he has never been in danger.

We always get bored with those whom we bore.

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

The most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive while we perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time they are wandering from what is said and desire to return to what they want to say.

That which occasions so many mistakes in the computations of men, when they expect return for favors, is that the giver's pride and the receiver's cannot agree upon the value of the kindness done.

What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them.

It requires greater virtues to support good fortune than bad.