If our friends do us a service, we think they owe it to us by their title of friend. We never think that they do not owe us their friendship.
Luc de ClapiersIs it against justice or reason to love ourselves? And why is self-love always a vice?
Luc de ClapiersSuperficial knowledge ... is hurtful to those who possess true genius; for it necessarily draws them away from their main object, wastes their industry over details and subjects foreign to their needs and natural talent, and lastly does not serve, as they flatter themselves, to prove the breadth of their mind. In all ages there have been men of very moderate intelligence who knew much, and so on the contrary, men of the highest intelligence who knew very little. Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.
Luc de Clapiers