L'absence diminue les mediocres passions, et augmente les grandes,comme le vent eteint les bougies, et allume le feu. Absence diminishes commonplace passions, and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and kindles fire.

What we take for high-mindedness is very often no other than ambition well disguised, that scorns means interests, only to pursuegreater.

It requires greater virtues to support good fortune than bad.

Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.

The health of the soul is as precarious as that of the body; for when we seem secure from passions, we are no less in danger of their infection than we are of falling ill when we appear to be well.

The only thing constant in life is change

There are no circumstances, however unfortunate, that clever people do not extract some advantage from.