It is only before those who are glad to hear it, and anxious to spread it, that we find it easy to speak ill of others.

The politics of courtiers resemble their shadows; they cringe and turn with the sun of the day.

What we gain by experience is not worth that we lose in illusion

Another life, if it were not better than this, would be less a promise than a threat.

It requires less character to discover the faults of others, than to tolerate them.

In all that surrounds him the egotist sees only the frame of his own portrait.

Some delicate matters must be treated like pins, because if they are not seized by the right end, we get pricked.