We may give advice, but we cannot inspire conduct.

We often pass from love to ambition, but we hardly ever return from ambition to love.

A man, in order to establish himself in the world, does everything he can to appear established there.

Nothing ought more to humiliate men who have merited great praise than the care they still take to boast of little things.

The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so.

Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another.

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.

We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.

Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy, which makes the heart attach itself successively to all the qualities of the person we love, giving preference now to one and presently to another.

There are two sorts of constancy in love; the one comes from the constant discovery in our beloved of new grounds for love, and the other comes from making it a point of honour to be constant.