No matter how much care we put into hiding our passions under the appearances of devotion and honor, they can always be seen to peer out through these covers.

The force we use on ourselves, to prevent ourselves from loving, is often more cruel than the severest treatment at the hands of one loved.

Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.

The passions often engender their contraries.

Praise is a more ingenious, concealed, and subtle kind of flattery, that satisfies both the giver and the receiver, though by verydifferent ways. The one accepts it as a reward due to his merit; the other gives it that he may be looked upon as a just and discerning person.

The same strength of character which helps a man resist love, helps to make it more violent and lasting too. People of unsettled minds are always driven about with passions, but never absolutely filled with any.

If one judges love by the majority of its effects, it is more like hatred than like friendship.