 Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible. |
| We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves. |
| We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years. |
| A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter. |
| It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it. |
| Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors. |
| Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever. |
| No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will. |
| Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too. |
| Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences. |
| Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself. |
| Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name. |
| The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune. |
| However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention. |
| Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them. |
| The more one loves a mistress, the more one is ready to hate her. |
| Jealousy springs more from love of self than from love of another. |
| Everyone complains of his memory, and nobody complains of his judgment. |
| We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves. |
| Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay. |
