The better part of one's life consists of his friendships. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Joseph Gillespie, July 13, 1849 Friendship is insipid to those who have experienced love.
We are much harder on people who betray us in small ways than on people who betray others in great ones.
It is more often from pride than from defective understanding that people oppose established opinions: they find the best places taken in the good party and are reluctant to accept inferior ones.
A good woman is a hidden treasure; who discovers her will do well not to boast about it.
The temperament that produces a talent for little things is the opposite of that required for great ones.
The courage of a great many men, and the virtue of a great many women, are the effect of vanity, shame, and especially a suitabletemperament.
A man often thinks he rules himself, when all the while he is ruled and managed; and while his understanding directs one design, his affections imperceptibly draw him into another.
All the passions are nothing else than different degrees of heat and cold of the blood.
Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongsto us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others.
Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
There are fine things that are more brilliant when they are unfinished than when finished too much.
Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.
Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.
We give nothing so freely as advice.
People would never fall in love if they hadn't heard love talked about.
Self-love is the love of a man's own self, and of everything else for his own sake. It makes people idolaters to themselves, and tyrants to all the world besides.
We acknowledge our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the eyes of others.
Madmen and fools see everything through the medium of humor.
There are good marriages, but there are no delightful ones.
The person giving the advice returns the confidence placed in him with a disinterested eagerness... and he is usually guided only by his own interest or reputation.
There is something to be said for jealousy, because it only designs the preservation of some good which we either have or think wehave a right to. But envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.
Love can no more continue without a constant motion than fire can; and when once you take hope and fear away, you take from it its very life and being.
Behind many acts that are thought ridiculous there lie wise and weighty motives.
For most men the love of justice is only the fear of suffering injustice.
Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a morecalculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.
Jealously is always born with love but it does not die with it.
Chance corrects us of many faults that reason would not know how to correct.
L'absence diminue les mediocres passions, et augmente les grandes,comme le vent eteint les bougies, et allume le feu. Absence diminishes commonplace passions, and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and kindles fire.
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 most violent passions sometimes leave us at rest, but vanity agitates us constantly.
We often make use of envenomed praise, that reveals on the rebound, as it were, defects in those praised which we dare not exposeany other way.
We often persuade ourselves to love people who are more powerful than we are, yet interest alone produces our friendship; we do not give our hearts away for the good we wish to do, but for that we expect to receive.
We do not praise others, ordinarily, but in order to be praised ourselves.
A wise man thinks it more advantageous not to join the battle than to win.
The greatest part of intimate confidences proceed from a desire either to be pitied or admired.
A man's worth has its season, like fruit.
Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away.
Moderation cannot have the credit of combatiug and subduing ambition, they are never found together. Moderation is the languor and indolence of the soul, as ambition is its activity and ardor.
When we seek reconciliation with our enemies, it is commonly out of a desire to better our own condition, a being harassed and tired out with a state of war, and a fear of some ill accident which we are willing to prevent.
The truest mark of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy.
The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
We never desire strongly, what we desire rationally.
Things often offer themselves to our mind in a more finished form in the very first thought, than we might have made them by muchart and study.
Truth does less good in the world than its appearances do harm.
Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.
Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them; and a man has attained it when he enjoys what he loves and desires himself, and not what other people think lovely and desirable.
The measure of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.
Many men are contemptuous of riches; few can give them away.
Gratitude is a useless word. You will find it in a dictionary but not in life.
Truth does not do as much good in the world as its imitations do harm.
Women find it far more difficult to overcome their inclination to coquetry than to overcome their love.
Sometimes a fool has talent, but never judgment.
Politeness of the mind is to have delicate thoughts
A true friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we take the least thought about acquiring.
One kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable.
Youth is a continual intoxication; it is the fever of reason.
Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.
If we are incapable of finding peace in ourselves, it is pointless to search elsewhere.
It is far better to be deceived than undeceived by those whom we tenderly love.
Those only are despicable who fear to be despised.
