There are some good marriages, but practically no delightful ones.

We easily forget our faults when no one knows them but ourselves.

Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.

Jealousy is always born with love, but does not die with it. In jealousy there is more of self-love than of love to another.

The most brilliant fortunes are often not worth the littleness required to gain them.

The soul's maladies have their relapses like the body's. What we take for a cure is often just a momentary rally or a new form of the disease.

Some crimes get honor and renown by being committed with more pomp, by a greater number, and in a higher degree of wickedness thanothers. Hence it is that public robberies, plunderings, and sackings have been looked upon as excellencies and noble achievements, and the seizing of whole countries, however unjustly and barbarously, is dignified with the glorious name of gaining conquests.