Boredom ... causes us to neglect more duties than does interest.

We often forgive those who bore us but can't forgive those whom we bore.

Perfect courage means doing unwitnessed what we would be capable of with the world looking on.

If we resist our passions it is more from their weakness than from our strength.

The passions are the only orators which always persuade.

Reason alone is insufficient to make us enthusiastic in any matter.

We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.

There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.

We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.

One forgives to the degree that one loves.

One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.

What men call friendship is no more than a partnership a mutual care of interests an exchange of favors - in a word it is a sort of traffic in which self-love ever proposes to be the gainer.

It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.

What causes us to like new acquaintances is not so much weariness of our old ones or the pleasure of change as disgust at not being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well and the hope of being admired more by those who do not know so much about us.

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.

Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests.

If we have not peace within ourselves it is in vain to seek it from outward sources.

We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.

A man's happiness or unhappiness depends as much on his temperament as on his destiny.

Hope is the last thing that dies in man.

The intellect is always fooled by the heart.

We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason.

Though men pride themselves on their great actions often they are not the result of any great design but of chance.

Happiness is in the taste and not in the things themselves we are happy from possessing what we like not from possessing what others like.

The virtues and the vices are all put in motion by interest.

Interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of parts even that of disinterestedness.

In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that are offered.

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

In jealousy there is more of self-love than love.

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.

The confidence which we have in ourselves gives birth to much of that which we have in others.

To establish oneself in the world one has to do all one can to appear established.

There are more defects in temperament than in the mind.

Nothing is so infectious as example.

It is as proper to have pride in oneself as it is ridiculous to show it to others.

The confidence which we have in ourselves gives birth to much of that which we have in others.

A man who finds no satisfaction in himself seeks for it in vain elsewhere.

True eloquence consists of saying all that should be said and that only.

We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire.

The prospect of being pleased tomorrow will never console me for the boredom of today.

I always say to myself what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment.

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

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