Treachery is more often the effect of weakness than of a formed design.

Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy; we do not easily believe beyond what we see.

Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.

Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.

People always complain about their memories, never about their minds.

The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.

In the human heart there is a ceaseless birth of passions, so that the destruction of one is almost always the establishment of another.