We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves.
Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.
Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.
Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.
In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
Some accidents there are in life that a little folly is necessary to help us out of.
The mind cannot long play the heart's role.
What keeps us from abandoning ourselves entirely to one vice, often, is the fact that we have several.
Whatever good things people say of us, they tell us nothing new.
Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.
If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.
In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.
It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily.
That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest.
There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
There is nothing men are so generous of as advice.
Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.
Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude.
We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who love us more than we wish.
We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves.
We easily forgive our friends those faults that do no affect us ourselves.
We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.
