Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily; and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.

The passions of youth are not more dangerous to health than is the lukewarmness of old age.

The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.

The man who leaves a woman best pleased with herself is the one whom she will soonest wish to see.

The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.

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

If vanity does not entirely overthrow the virtues, at least it makes them all totter.