All the great amusements are dangerous for the Christian life.

We nearly always make ourselves masters of those whom we know well, because he who is thoroughly understood is in some sense subject to those who understand him.

We need not regard what good a friend has done us, but only his desire to do us good.

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 sometimes useful to pretend we are deceived, because when we show a deceiving man that we see through his artifices, we only encourage him to increase his deceptions.

There are petty-minded people who cannot endure to be reminded of their ignorance because, since they are usually quite blind to all things, quite foolish, and quite ignorant, they never question anything, and are persuaded that they see clearly what in fact they never see at all, save through the darkness of their own dispositions.

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.