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.

One forgives to the degree that one loves.

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

Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.

Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.

True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.

There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.

There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.

On neither the sun, nor death, can a man look fixedly.

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.

We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.

If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.

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

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.

We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.

However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.

One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one.

There are few virtuous women who are not bored with their trade.

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

It is almost always a fault of one who loves not to realize when he ceases to be loved.

Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.

There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.

Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.

One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.