A true friend is the greatest of all blessing, and the one that we take the least care of all to acquire.

Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and blow in afire.

Confidence contributes more to conversation that wit.

Everyone complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgement.

Few people know how to be old.

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

Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.

If we had no faults of our own, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others.

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

If we resist our passions, it is more from their weakness than from out strength.

It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability.

It is a wearisome illness to preserve one's health by too strict a regiment.

It is more shameful to mistrust one's friends than to be deceived by them.

It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks of it, but few have seen it.

Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it.

Men have made a virtue of moderation to limit the ambition of the great, and to console people of mediocrity for their want of fortune and of merit.

Men would not live long is society were they not the dupes of one another."

Old people like to give good advice, as solace for no longer being able to provide bad examples.

One is never as happy or as unhappy as one thinks.

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing before all the world.

Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble.

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

Self-interest speaks all sorts of tongues, and plays all sorts of roles, even that of disinterestedness.

Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.

The confidence which we have is ourselves engenders the greatest part of that which we have in others.

The gratitude of most men is nothing but a secret desire to receive greater benefits.

The greatest miracle of love is the cure of coquetry.

The refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.

True love is like a ghost, which everybody talks about and few have seen.

Virtue would not go so far if vanity did not keep it company.

We confess to little faults only to persuade others that we have no great ones.

We need greater virtues to sustain good fortune than bad.

We often forgive those who bore us, but never those whom we bore.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.

What is called liberality is often merely the vanity of giving.

What's the use of being young without good looks, or having good looks without being young?

When out vices leave us, we flatter ourselves with the idea that we have left them.

Youth is a continual intoxication; it is the fever of reason.