Duc de La Rochefoucauld

The truest mark of being born with great qualities, is being born without envy.

In the misfortune of our best friends, we find something which is not displeasing to us.

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings and the one which we take the least thought to acquire.

We praise in others what we find in ourselves; true friendship grows when self-esteem is flattered by mutual agreement in tastes and pleasures.

What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.

Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them.

Had we ourselves no faults we should find less pleasure discovering them in others.

Quarrels would not last long if the fault were on one side only.

We confess our faults, to make amends by our sincerity for the harm they have done us in the opinion of others.

We easily forget our faults when they are known only to ourselves.