The person giving the advice returns the confidence placed in him with a disinterested eagerness... and he is usually guided only by his own interest or reputation.

No man can love a second time the person whom he has once truly ceased to love.

In infants, levity is a prettiness; in men a shameful defect; but in old age, a monstrous folly.

It is easy to be wise on behalf of others than to be so for ourselves.

What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.

Commonplace minds usually condemn what is beyond the reach of their understanding.

Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it.