Our distrust of another justifies his deceit.

We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.

What commonly hinders us from showing the recesses of our heart to our friends, is not the distrust we have of them, but that we have of ourselves.

There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.

Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while.

We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.

People always complain about their memories, never about their minds.

It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.

We should not judge of a man's merit by his great abilities, but by the use he makes of them.

If we judge of love by its usual effects it resembles hatred more than friendship.

How rare true love maybe, it is less so than true friendship.

How can we expect another to keep our secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves?

The surest way to be deceived is to think oneself cleverer than the others.

Preserving the health by too strict a regimen is a wearisome malady.

All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.

We should earnestly desire but few things if we clearly knew what we desired.

That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest.

No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.

He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it.

Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.

Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.

Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side.

Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too; and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected.

Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.

Listening well and answering well is one of the greatest perfections that can be obtained in conversation.

Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person.

Flattery is base coin to which only our vanity gives currency.

Our enemies' opinion of us comes closer to the truth than our own.

Courage is doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone.

There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.

Jealously is always born with love but it does not die with it.

It is harder to hide feelings we have than to feign those we lack.

I have always been an admirer. I regard the gift of admiration as indispensable if one is to amount to something; I don't know where I would be without it.

On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly.

We are all strong enough to endure the misfortunes of others.

For most men the love of justice is only the fear of suffering injustice.

No people are more often wrong than those who will not allow themselves to be wrong.

Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.

Ambition has been so strong as to make very miserable men take comfort that they were supreme in misery.

Passion often makes fools of the wisest men and gives the silliest wisdom.

It is a kind of happiness to know just how unhappy we could be.

As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.

Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.

We are nearer loving those who hate us, than those who love us more than we desire.

Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone.

We forgive so long as we love.

Our minds are lazier than our bodies.

Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us.

Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.