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.
Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.
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.
Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.
In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.
We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done.
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.
Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.
Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while.
Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.
Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.
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.
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.
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.
If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.
In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.
Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.
Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.
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.
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.
It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.
However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.
They that apply themselves to trifling matters commonly become incapable of great ones.
It is not enough to have great qualities We should also have the management of them.
As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.
We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us.
Nothing is so contagious as example and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like.
We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.
Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.
There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.
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.
Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.