Social intercourse, even friendship among most people, is a merely a business arrangement that lasts only so long as there is need.

There is little advantage in pleasing ourselves when we please no one else, for our great self-love is often chastised by the scorn of others.

It is such a great fault to talk too much that, in business and conversation, if what is good is also brief, it is doubly good, and one gains by brevity what one often loses by an excess of words.

Pettiness of mind, ignorance and presumption are the cause of stubbornness, because stubborn people only want to believe what they themselves can imagine, and they can imagine very few things.

There is always enough self-love hidden beneath the greatest devoutness to set limits on charity.

To be too dissatisfied with ourselves is a weakness. To be too satisfied with ourselves is a stupidity.

The maxims of Christian life, which should draw upon the truths of the Gospel, are always partially symbolic of the mind and temperament of those who teach them to us. The former, by their natural sweetness, show us the quality of God's mercy; the latter, by their harshness, show us God's justice.