True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.
We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.
However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.
The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.
We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye.
Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.
In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.
Everyone complains of his memory, and nobody complains of his judgment.
If we had no faults of our own, we should not take so much pleasure in noticing those in others.
To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.
The accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech.
Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.
There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.
To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.
One forgives to the degree that one loves.
We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.
We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.
It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.
No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.
Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like.
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.
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.
Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources.
We are strong enough to bear the misfortunes of others.
The heart is forever making the head its fool.
When we are in love we often doubt that which we most believe.
Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences.
People's personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not.
Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.
We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.
The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.
We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.
No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.
Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.
It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.
As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.
If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.
