If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.

We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason.

There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.

Our greediness so often troubles us, making us run after so many things at the same time, that while we too eagerly look after the least we miss the greatest.

Praise is flattery, artful, hidden, delicate, which gratifies differently him who praises and him who is praised. The one takes it as the reward of merit, the other bestows it to show his impartiality and knowledge.

The mark of extraordinary merit is to see those most envious of it constrained to praise.

Fortune and humor govern the world.