Sometimes we praise the way things used to be in order to blame the present, and we esteem what is no longer in order to scorn what is.

There is no one who cannot derive great help and great benefit from learning; but there are also only a few people who do not receive a great harm from the light and knowledge they have received by learning, unless they use their knowledge in a manner both fit and natural for them.

Self-love is even deceived by self-love, because by looking out for our own interests and disregarding those of other people, we lose the advantage that comes with the exchange of favors.

Good results are sometimes owing to a failure of judgment, because the faculty of judgment often hinders us from undertaking many things which would succeed if carried through without thinking.

The foolish acts of others ought to serve more as a lesson to us than an occasion to laugh at those who commit them.

Virtue is not always where it seems to be. People sometimes acknowledge favors only to maintain their reputations, and to make themselves more impudently ungrateful for favors that they do not wish to acknowledge.

Wealth does not teach us to transcend the desire for wealth. The possession of many goods does not bring the repose of not desiring them.