Nothing is given so willingly as advice.
However different men's fortunes may be, there is always something or other that balances the ill and the good, and makes all even at last.
Deprived of the company of fools, a great wit does not seem half so clever.
What men have given the name of friendship to is nothing but an alliance, a reciprocal accommodation of interest, an exchange of good offices; in it is nothing but a system of traffic, in which self-love always proposes to itself some advantage.
The highest skill is the true judgment of values.
Young women that would not be thought coquettish, and old men that would not be ridiculous, should never talk of love, as if they had any concern in it.
Nature seems to have treasured up the depth of our mind talents and abilities that we are not aware of; it is the privilege of the passions alone to bring them to light, and to direct us sometimes to surer and more excellent aims than conscious effort could.
Most frequently we make confidants from vanity, a love of talking, a wish to win the confidence of others, and to make an exchange of secrets.
The most trying fools are the bright ones.
The unbosoming oneself to another is a kind of release to the soul, which strives to lighten its burden and find ease by throwing off the weight that lay heavy upon it.
The disabusing a man strongly possessed with an opinion of his own worth is the very same ill office that was done to the fool at Athens, who fancied all the ships that came into the harbor were his own.
More things are left undone through neglect of duty than through neglect of self-interest.
