 How can we expect another to keep our secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves? |
| Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves. |
| Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side. |
| We are very far from always knowing our own wishes. |
| Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it. |
| We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears. |
| Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love. |
| Usually we praise only to be praised. |
| Whatever good things people say of us, they tell us nothing new. |
| The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others. |
| The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second. |
| Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding. |
| It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular. |
| It is almost always a fault of one who loves not to realize when he ceases to be loved. |
| Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself. |
| Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us. |
| No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does. |
| Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being. |
| 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. |
| I have always been an admirer. I regard the gift of admiration as indispensable if one is to amount to something; I don't know where I would be without it. |
