Some people are like popular songs that you only sing for a short time.

The happiest liaisons are based on mutual misunderstanding.

Few people know how to be old.

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

Our passions are so governed by injustice and self-interest that they are dangerous guides; suspect them most when they appear most logical.

Had we no faults, we would not take such pleasure in discovering them in others.

Egotism plays many parts, even that of altruism.

Undue attention to details tends to unfit us for greater enterprises.

A clever man reaps some benefit from the worst catastrophe, and a fool can turn even good luck to his disadvantage.

Why expect others to guard our secrets if we cannot keep them ourselves?

Mind is the dupe of heart.

Those who know their minds best, know their hearts least.

We never forgive a friend or a foe who betrays us, yet we do not resent betraying ourselves.

We spend so much time deceiving others that we end by deceiving ourselves.

Deception is more often the fruit of weakness than of an intent to deceive.

When we resist temptation it is usually because temptation is weak, not because we are strong.

The surest way to be deceived is to think oneself cleverer than one's neighbor.

The only good imitations are those which accentuate the faults of their bad originals.

Our true qualities never make us as ridiculous as those we affect.

We are often as unlike ourselves as we are unlike others.

Many would never have fallen in love, had they never heard the term.

We prefer to malign ourselves than not to talk of ourselves at all.

One reason why so few people converse agreeably or logically is that a man pays more attention to his own utterances than to giving an exact answer to questions put to him. Even the most charming and clever do little more than appear attentive, while in their eyes one may see a look of bewilderment as one talks, so anxious are they to return to their own ideas. To be bent on pleasing one's self is a poor method of pleasing or of convincing others. A man who listens well and answers to the point is a master of conversation.

As it is a trait of powerful intellects to express much in a few words; inversely, small minds talk much and say little.

Few are sufficiently sagacious to prefer useful censure to compromising praise.

It is harder to avoid being influenced than to influence others.

The virtues of some people repel us, yet the vices of others are their greatest charm.

The redeeming quality of some people lies in their faculty of making useful blunders. How useless would these people be, were they to change their ways!

However brilliant an achievement may be, we should not deem it great unless it be the result of a noble thought.

Apparent virtue is more often praised than true merit.

Our hopes, often though they deceive us, lead us pleasantly along the road of life.

There are few of us who are not ashamed of a mutual passion once love has died.

We like new acquaintances, not so much that we are wearied of our old friends, or that we enjoy change, but because of our disappointment at not being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well, and because of a hope that people who know us less intimately may admire us more.

Vices are as often component parts of virtues as poisons are of healing potions; shrewdness combines and blends them to relieve the ills of life.

Some crimes, because of their very scope, number, or atrocity are held harmless, or even glorious. Hence picking pockets is an art, and seizing provinces without pretext a conquest.

A man who is never foolish is not as wise as he thinks.

Accepting favors from people compels us to swallow the injuries they do us.

Posing as the only wise man is the acme of folly.

The tribulations of our best friends arouse sentiments in us which are not entirely unpleasant.

No one should be praised for benevolence if he is too weak to be wicked; most benevolence is but laziness or lack of willpower.

We are often unwelcome when we least suspect it.

Nothing is impossible; there is a means of accomplishing everything, and had we sufficient will-power we should should find no lack of means.

Apparent generosity is often only a scorn of trifles in the pursuit of great profits.

Great minds seeking great ends do not stop at detail.

True eloquence lies in saying everything one should say, but nothing that one should not.

In every walk of life we assume the expression and appearance of what we would be esteemed. Hence, we may say that this world is a world of masks.

No one is sufficiently keen to realize to the full the harm he does.

We like to analyze others, but we dislike to be analyzed.

Devoting one's life to keeping well is one of the most tedious of ailments.

Some wicked people would be less dangerous, had they no redeeming qualities.

Some complications, like ailments, are aggravated by treatment, and the greatest skill lies in knowing when interference is dangerous.

Moderation cannot claim both to strive with and to have mastered ambition; the two are never coexistent. Moderation is the indolence and the sloth of the soul, while ambition is its activity and its energy.

It is hard to love people whom we do not respect, but it is harder still to love those whom we respect more highly than we respect ourselves.

We can forgive people who bore us, but never those whom we bore.

If there are men not open to ridicule, it is that their absurdities have not been carefully sought.

Why is it that our memory recalls even the minutest details of our experiences, but cannot recall how many times we have told the same story to the same person?

The vast pleasure we derive from talking of ourselves should make us suspect that the pleasure of our audience may not be as great.

A weakling is incapable of sincerity.

It is no great misfortune to put an ingrate under an obligation, but it is a very great misfortune to be indebted to a dishonest person.

It is impossible long to maintain the sentiments due friends and benefactors, if one allows oneself frequently to discuss their faults.

Praising the mighty for virtues they do not possess is one method of insulting them with impunity.

We admit our petty foibles only to disclaim greater faults.

Certain good qualities are like the senses; those who lack them can neither appreciate nor understand them.

Violent hatred puts us beneath those whom we hate.

The enthusiasm of youth is no more harmful than the indifference of age.

Circumstances make us known to others, and still more to ourselves.

We rarely consider anyone sensible unless he agrees with our ideas.

One is most bored with those with whom it is not permissible to be bored.

Some faults, used to advantage, outshine virtues.

Little minds are deeply offended by little things; great minds see comprehensively, and do not take offense at trifles.

Happy people rarely correct their faults; they consider themselves vindicated, since fortune endorses their evil ways.

A mind of mediocre attainments condemns everything beyond its scope.

People fall more in our estimation through trifling infidelities which affect us, than through greater ones which affect only others.

Little confidence as we may have in what people tell us, we always think them more sincere toward us than toward the next man.

There are very few virtuous women who are not weary of the part.

No coward appreciates the full extent of his cowardice.

Many as you may outwit, someone will outwit you.

Though rarely bold enough to assert that we have no faults, and that our enemies have no virtues, we are not far from believing it.

Merit may exist independently of dignity, but no dignity is without a certain merit.

It seems as though nature had hidden deep within us talents and cleverness of which we ourselves are ignorant, and which only our passions can bring to light, giving us a more accurate understanding than art or education ever achieve.

Each age of life is new to us, and we find ourselves hampered by inexperience regardless of our years.

The worst form of ridicule to which old people, once charming, are susceptible, is to forget that they are no longer attractive.

None of our faults are as reprehensible as the methods we use to conceal them.

The charm of novelty and the permanency of habit, opposites though they be, prevent us from seeing the faults of our friends.

A desire to appear natural inevitably makes one artificial.

One should judge a man, not by his noble qualities, but by his use thereof.

An accurately defined wish is rarely ardently desired.

We boast the faults we are unwilling to correct.

Weakness, rather than vice, is the antithesis of virtue.

Our pride increases proportionately to the faults we overcome.

Cynical as the world may be, it spares false virtue more frequently than it condemns real merit.

We should gain more in the end by allowing the world to see us in our true colors, than by trying to appear what we are not.

Our enemies judge us more accurately than we judge ourselves.

The same pride which makes us condemn the faults of which we think ourselves free, impels us to scorn the virtues we do not possess.

Some bad qualities make great talents.

A thing desired only rationally is not very ardently desired.

All our qualities, good and bad, are contingent, depending for the most part on circumstances.

One must have strength of character to be truly amiable; most kind people are merely weak, and may easily become sour.

Weakness or force of habit attaches us to what is easy or pleasant, thus limiting our knowledge. No one ever troubles to exert his powers to the full.

Our mind is lazier than our body.

Of all our failings, laziness is the least known to us. None is more powerful or more malignant, although its ravages are hidden. If we examine carefully into its influence we shall find that it is invariably mistress of our sentiments, interests and pleasures. It is an octopus which holds up the greatest ships; it is a flat calm more dangerous to important ventures than reefs or hurricanes. The indolence of sloth has a subtle and hidden charm for our souls which suspends our most ardent efforts, and crumbles our firmest resolutions.

However depraved men may be, they dare not openly condemn virtues; hence when they wish to persecute the righteous they pretend their virtue is feigned, or charge it with crimes.

One perceives that people know their own faults better than we suspect, since they never admit their errors in speaking of their conduct. At such times conceit, which generally blinds them, enlightens them, and so sharpens their wits that they can suppress or conceal the slightest thing which might be incriminating.

When young people first go into society they should appear either embarrassed or thoughtless; in general an air of poise and self-possession soon turns to impertinence.

Quarrels would be but short-lived, were all the wrong on one side.

An honest fool is, in the long run, less of a bore than a corrupt genius.