Friendship is a traffic wherein self-love always proposes to be the gainer.

The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those who are established.

We should wish for few things with eagerness, if we perfectly knew the nature of that which was the object of our desire.

We often do shallow good in order to accomplish evil with impunity.

However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.

The greater part of mankind judge of men only by their fashionableness or their fortune.

A man is sometimes better off deceived about the one he loves, than undeceived.