In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.
However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.
To establish oneself in the world one has to do all one can to appear established.
There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.
It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.
Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.
There is no better proof of a man's being truly good than his desiring to be constantly under the observation of good men.
We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us.
As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.
Perfect courage means doing unwitnessed what we would be capable of with the world looking on.
Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.
When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
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.
However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.
There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune it is a certain air which distinguishes us, and seems to destine us for great things it is a price which we imperceptibly set upon ourselv...