Our wisdom is no less at fortune's mercy than our wealth.

The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.

We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire.

What men call friendship is no more than a partnership, a mutual care of interests, an exchange of favors - in a word, it is a sort of traffic, in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer.

When great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance of misfortune, they show us that they were only sustained by ambition, and not by their mind; so that PLUS a great vanity, heroes are made like other men.

Vanity, shame, and above all disposition, often make men brave and women chaste.

Familiarity is a suspension of almost all the laws of civility, which libertinism has introduced into society under the notion of ease.