The most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive while we perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time they are wandering from what is said and desire to return to what they want to say.

Virtue would not make such advances if there were not a little vanity to keep it company.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

A wise man should order his interests, and set them all in their proper places. This order is often troubled by greed, which putsus upon pursuing so many things at once that, in eagerness for matters of less consideration, we grasp at trifles, and let go things of greater value.

All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.

Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.

Many men are contemptuous of riches; few can give them away.