We can love with all our hearts those in whom we recognize great faults. It would be impertinent to believe that perfection alone has the right to please us; sometimes our weaknesses attach us to each other as much as our virtues.

We are forced to respect the gifts of nature, which study and fortune cannot give.

Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.

The usual pretext of those who make others unhappy is that they do it for their own good.

Few maxims are true in every respect.

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

Hatred is keener than friendship, less keen than love.