Idiots And Lunatics See Only Their Own

When We Exaggerate Our Friends' Tenderness Towards Us, It Is Often Less From Gratitude Than From A Desire To Exhibit Our Own Virtue.

It Is A Mistake To Imagine, That The Violent Passions Only, Such As Ambition And Love, Can Triumph Over The Rest. Idleness, Languid As It Is, Often Masters Them All; She Influences All Our Designs And Actions, And Insensibly Consumes And Destroys Both Passions And Virtues.

Fortune And Humor Govern The World.

Gratitude Is Like Credit; It Is The Backbone Of Our Relations; Frequently We Pay Our Debts Not Because Equity Demands That We Should, But To Facilitate Future Loans.

Men Are Not Only Prone To Forget Benefits; They Even Hate Those Who Have Obliged Them, And Cease To Hate Those Who Have Injured Them. The Necessity Of Revenging An Injury, Or Of Recompensing A Benefit Seems A Slavery To Which They Are Unwilling To Submit.