Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection admits a sacrifice.

Glory fills the world with virtue, and, like a beneficent sun, covers the whole earth with flowers and with fruits.

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

We are very wrong to think that some fault or other can exclude virtue, or to consider the alliance of good and evil as a monstrosity or an enigma.

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.

The maxims of men reveal their characters.

The young suffer less from their own errors than from the cautiousness of the old.