If a man is endowed with a noble and courageous soul, if he is painstaking, proud, ambitious, without meanness, of a profound a deep-seated intelligence, I dare assert that he lacks nothing to be neglected by the great and men in high office, who fear, more than other men, those whom they cannot dominate.

The fool is like those people who think themselves rich with little.

Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.

Is it against justice or reason to love ourselves? And why is self-love always a vice?

Despair exaggerates not only our misery but also our weakness.

Men crowd into honorable careers without other vocation than their vanity, or at best their love of fame.

We often quarrel with the unfortunate to get rid of pitying them.