 Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs. |
| Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well. |
| The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken. |
| If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship. |
| We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves. |
| We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones. |
| A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant. |
| We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation. |
| The one thing people are the most liberal with, is their advice. |
| It is with an old love as it is with old age a man lives to all the miseries, but is dead to all the pleasures. |
| 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. |
| One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines. |
| We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore. |
| Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites. |
| Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit. |
| Jealously is always born with love but it does not die with it. |
| A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice. |
| What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one. |
| Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while. |
| We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them. |
