Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.

Hope and fear are inseparable.

The temperament that produces a talent for little things is the opposite of that required for great ones.

What men call friendship is no more than a partnership, a mutual care of interests, an exchange of favors - in a word, it is a sort of traffic, in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer.

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

The health of the soul is as precarious as that of the body; for when we seem secure from passions, we are no less in danger of their infection than we are of falling ill when we appear to be well.

Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself.