Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.
The same wind snuffs candles yet kindles flames; so, where absence kills a little love, it fans a great one.
One is never so happy or so unhappy as one fancies.
We promise according to our hopes; we fulfill according to our fears.
True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about but few have seen.
It is harder to hide the feelings we have than to feign the ones we do not have.
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily.
Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.
We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
It is easier to know men than to know a man.
Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.
In their first passion, women love their lovers; in all the others, they love love.
There are foolish people who recognize their foolishness and use it skillfully.
Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.
Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side.
Everyone blames his memory; no one blames his judgment.
In all lives, there is a date where destiny forks either towards catastrophe or towards success.
It is difficult to define love. In the soul it is a passion to rule; in the mind it is sympathy; and in the body it is only a hidden and tactful desire to possess what we love after many mysteries.
Jealousy is always born with love but does not always die with it.
Sometimes it is pleasant for a husband to have a jealous wife: he always hears what he loves being talked about.
It is a kind of happiness to know how unhappy we must be.
Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.
In jealousy there is more of self-love than love.
Only great men have great faults.
The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire to receive even greater benefits.
Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise.
The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice.
Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and fan a fire.
Nothing is given so profusely as advice.
We pardon to the extent that we love.
Those who apply themselves too much to little things often become incapable of great ones.
We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves we have no great ones.
Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others.
We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.
We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.
If we judge love by the majority of its results, it resembles hatred more than friendship.
