Whatever good things people say of us, they tell us nothing new.

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

There are no events so disastrous that adroit men do not draw some advantage from them, nor any so fortunate that the imprudent cannot turn to their own prejudice.

What we take for high-mindedness is very often no other than ambition well disguised, that scorns means interests, only to pursuegreater.

Nothing ought more to humiliate men who have merited great praise than the care they still take to boast of little things.

Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.

No man can love a second time the person whom he has once truly ceased to love.