All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.

It is easier to understand mankind in general than any individual man.

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.

The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others.

A small degree of wit, accompanied by good sense, is less tiresome in the long run than a great amount of wit without it.

What renders other people's vanity insufferable is that it wounds our own.

They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones.