When we enlarge upon the affection our friends have for us, this is very often not so much out of a sense of gratitude as from a desire to persuade people of our own great worth, that can deserve so much kindness.

Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage is to their eyes.

There is scarcely any man sufficiently clever to appreciate all the evil he does.

The truest comparison we can make of love is to liken it to a fever; we have no more power over the one than the other, either as to its violence or duration.

Our good qualities expose us more to hatred and persecution than all the ill we do.

A respectable man may love madly, but not foolishly.

When a man is in love, he doubts, very often, what he most firmly believes.