In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.

One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.

Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.

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

Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.

What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them.

In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

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

There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.