The favorites of fortune or of fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition. - Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues

It is in our own mind and not in exterior objects that we perceive most things; fools know scarcely anything because they are empty, and their heart is narrow; but great souls find in themselves a number of exterior things; they have no need to read or travel or to listen or to work to discover the highest truths; they have only to delve into themselves and search, if we may say so, their own thoughts.

Whatever affection we have for our friends or relations, the happiness of others never suffices for our own.

If our friends do us a service, we think they owe it to us by their title of friend. We never think that they do not owe us their friendship.