Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them.

We often pay our debts not because it is only fair that we should, but to make future loans easier.

The reason why most women have so little sense of friendship is that this is but a cold and flat passion to those that have felt that of love.

We label judges with having the meanest motives, and yet we desire that our reputation and fame should depend upon the judgment of men, who are all, either from their jealousy or preoccupation or want of intelligence, opposed to us - and yet despite their bias, just for the sake of making these men decide in our favor, we peril in so many ways both our peace and our life.

Beautiful coquettes are quacks of love.

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.

We exaggerate the glory of some men in order to detract from that of others.