Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.
Everyone complains of his memory, and nobody complains of his judgment.
Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself.
In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.
It takes more strength of character to withstand good fortune than bad.
Tis more dishonourable to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him.
True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.
Our own distrust gives a fair pretence for the knavery of other people.
Of all the violent passions, the one that becomes a woman best is love.
Perfect courage and utter cowardice are two extremes which rarely occur.
The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second.
We should not be much concerned about faults we have the courage to own.
We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.
We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are not.
Selfishness is the grand moving principle of nine-tenths of our actions.
The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself.
We cannot possibly imagine the variety of contradictions in every heart.
If a man doesn't find ease in himself, 'tis in vain to seek it elsewhere.
For most men the love of justice is only the fear of suffering injustice.
True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.
Women in love sooner forgive great indiscretions than small infidelities.
It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.
The intention of cheating no one lays us open to being cheated ourselves.
The heat of youth is not more opposed to safety than the coldness of age.
We do not like to praise, and seldom praise anyone without self-interest.
We often pardon those that annoy us, but we cannot pardon those we annoy.
It is as easy to unknowingly deceive yourself as it is to deceive others.
Our merit gains us the esteem of the virtuous-our star that of the public.
Pride indemnifies itself and loses nothing even when it casts away vanity.
The sure mark of one born with noble qualities is being born without envy.
Civility is a desire to receive civilities, and to be accounted well-bred.
The fame of great men ought to be judged always by their big, fancy names.
It is impossible to love a second time what we have really ceased to love.
We bear, all of us, the misfortunes of other people with heroic constancy.
The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others.
A wise man thinks it more advantageous not to join the battle than to win.
When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.
There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do.
We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves.
We easily forgive our friends those faults that do no affect us ourselves.
Passion often makes fools of the wisest men and gives the silliest wisdom.
What renders other people's vanity insufferable is that it wounds our own.
There are certain defects which, well-mounted, glitter like virtue itself.
We are never so easily deceived as when we imagine we are deceiving others.
We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
We are always bored by the very people by whom it is vital not to be bored.
Friendship is a traffic wherein self-love always proposes to be the gainer.
A woman often thinks she regrets the lover, when she only regrets the love.
When a man is in love, he doubts, very often, what he most firmly believes.
The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others.