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.

We have neither the strength nor the opportunity to accomplish all the good and all the evil which we design.

You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men.

Clearness marks the sincerity of philosophers.

Excessive distrust is not less hurtfJul than its opposite. Most men become useless to him who is unwilling to risk being deceived.

Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit; few people are modest enough not to take offense that one appreciates them.

Nothing but courage can guide life.