Men are not only prone to forget benefits; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury, or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.

The secret of pleasing in conversation is not to explain too much everything; to say them half and leave a little for divination is a mark of the good opinion we have of others, and nothing flatters their self-love more.

We often act treacherously more from weakness than from a fixed motive.

The great interests of man: air and light, the joy of having a body, the voluptuousness of looking.

A man seldom finds people unthankful, as long as he remains in a condition of benefiting them further.

Whilst weakness and timidity keep us to our duty, virtue has often all the honor.

Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions.