Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?

The world is full of pots jeering at kettles.

The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.

There is no praise we have not lavished upon prudence; and yet she cannot assure to us the most trifling event.

Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites.

It appears that nature has hid at the bottom of our hearts talents and abilities unknown to us. It is only the passions that have the power of bringing them to light, and sometimes give us views more true and more perfect than art could possibly do.

It is not always from valor or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste.