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.

If virtue were its own reward, it would no longer be a human quality, but supernatural.

Hope deceives more men than cunning does.

Clearness marks the sincerity of philosophers.

Great men in teaching weak men to reflect have set them on the road to error.

When we feel that we lack whatever is needed to secure someone else's esteem, we are very close to hating him

In order to do great things, it is necessary to live as if one was never to die.