The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.

To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.

Admiration

We always love those who admire us; we do not always love those whom we admire.

Advice

We may give advice, but not the sense to use it.

Age and Aging

Few people know how to be old.

Anticipation

Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.

Behavior

We like to see others, but don't like others to see through us.

Chastity

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

Compliments

Usually we praise only to be praised.

Conversation

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

Courage

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

Deception

The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others.

Diets and Dieting

To safeguard one's health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness indeed.

Enemies

Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves.

Evil

There is hardly a man clever enough to recognize the full extent of the evil he does.

Failure

No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.

Faults

We forget our faults easily when they are known to ourselves alone.

Fools and Foolishness

He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.

Friends and Friendship

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

In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.

Goals

Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.

Gratitude

We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.

Hatred

When our hatred is violent, it sinks us even beneath those we hate.

Hope

Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this good use to us, that while we are traveling through life it conducts us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's end.

Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.

Innocence

Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.

Jealousy

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

Leaders and Leadership

If I advance, follow me! If I retreat, kill me! If I die, avenge me!

Love

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

We love those who admire us, but not those whom we admire.

Luck

Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance.

Mind

The mind is always the patsy of the heart.

Moderation

Moderation in people who are contented comes from that calm that good fortune lends to their spirit.

Motives

We should often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the motives behind them.

Passion

In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.

People

There are people who in spite of their merit disgust us, and others who please us in spite of their faults.

Pride

Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.

Quality

We are never so ridiculous by the qualities we have, as by those we affect to have.

Secrets

How can we accept another to keep our secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves.

Sincerity

Weak people cannot be sincere.

Style

Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural.

Timidity

Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it.

Weakness

We are more often treacherous, through weakness than through calculation.

Wisdom

It is more easy to be wise for others than for ourselves.

Wrong

There are few people who are more often in the wrong than those who cannot endure to be so.