Nothing hinders a thing from being natural so much as the straining ourselves to make it seem so.

Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.

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

We are so used to dissembling with others that in time we come to deceive and dissemble with ourselves.

Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.

How is it that we remember the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not remember how often we have recounted it to the same person?

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

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

Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.

People always complain about their memories, never about their minds.

It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.

Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone.

We always get bored with those whom we bore.

The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices.

It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.

Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye.

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.

Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too.

Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.

People's personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not.

When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.

Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.

Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.

Funeral pomp is more for the vanity of the living than for the honor of the dead.

A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others.

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

It is easier to appear worthy of a position one does not hold, than of the office which one fills.

The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.

The reason that lovers never weary each other is because they are always talking about themselves.

We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.

The intellect is always fooled by the heart.

The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve.

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?

There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.

The mind is always the patsy of the heart.

The heart is forever making the head its fool.

We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation.

Jealousy springs more from love of self than from love of another.

We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do.

What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.

However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.

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

We often pardon those that annoy us, but we cannot pardon those we annoy.

If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.

Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves.

It is often laziness and timidity that keep us within our duty while virtue gets all the credit.

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

To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.

We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves.