Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.

What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.

Those who occupy their minds with small matters, generally become incapable of greatness.

We own up to minor failings, but only so as to convince others that we have no major ones.

It is not enough that we should succeed, but our friends must fail as well.

When we enlarge upon the affection our friends have for us, this is very often not so much out of a sense of gratitude as from a desire to persuade people of our own great worth, that can deserve so much kindness.

We often brag that we are never bored with ourselves, and are so vain as never to think ourselves bad company.