Love is always master everywhere. It shapes the soul, the heart, and the mind wherever it exists. What matters is not the amount of love, but simply its existence in the mind and heart where it resides. And it truly appears that love is to the soul of the lover as the soul itself is to the body which it animates.

There is no more reason to accuse ourselves excessively of our failings than to excuse them overmuch. He who goes overboard in self-criticism often does so in order not to suffer others' criticisms, or else does so out of a kind of vanity that wishes to make others believe that he knows how to confess his faults.

One cannot always bestow all manner of things upon everybody. To refuse a request for just cause is as praiseworthy as to grant a request that is worthy. It is for this reason that the "no" of some people pleases more than the "yes" of others. A refusal accompanied by sweet words and a civil manner gives more satisfaction to a true heart than a favor given with bad grace.

Those who foolishly pride themselves on their nobility mistake that which makes them noble, for it is only the virtue of their ancestors that gives them noble blood.

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.

It is neither a great praise nor a great blame when people say a tendency is in or out of fashion. If a tendency is as it should be at one time, it is always as it should be.

It is an admirable skill to able to sweeten a refusal with civil words which atone for the favor which we are not able to grant.