"Conceit causes more conversation than wit."

"We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore."

"When we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere."

"There are ways which lead to everything, and if we have sufficient will we should always have sufficient means."

"We never desire strongly, what we desire rationally."

"The intention of never deceiving often exposes us to deception."

"The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others."

"To establish yourself in the world a person must do all they can to appear already established."

"Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire to seem so."

"It is great cleverness to know how to conceal our cleverness."

"The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so."

"If we judge of love by its usual effects, it resembles hatred more than friendship."

"He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks."

"What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love."

"What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one."

"What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given."

"Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue."

"Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others."

"The happiness or unhappiness of men depends as much on their humors as on fortune."

"Fortune and humor govern the world."

"Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind."

"There are few good women who do not tire of their role."

"In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors."

"We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them."

"To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die."

"It's easier to be wise for others than for ourselves."

"We pardon to the extent that we love."

"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 ourselves."

"Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt."

"Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does."

"Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise."

"Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit."

"We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves."

"The heart is forever making the head its fool."

"No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does."

"We are more often treacherous, through weakness than through calculation."

"A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter."

"A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others."

"A man's worth has its season, like fruit."

"Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires."

"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."

"Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it."

"Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit."

"Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind."

"Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them."

"Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency."

"Fortune converts everything to the advantage of her favorites."

"Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example."

"Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors."

"He is not to pass for a man of reason who stumbles upon reason by chance but he who knows it and can judge it and has a true taste for it."