(15.) If I were to admit that in the ebullitions of a violent passion one may love another person better than oneself, whom should I please most—those who love or those who are beloved?
(16.) Men are not seldom inclined to fall in love, but cannot succeed in their desire; they seek every opportunity of being conquered, but fail to meet it, and, if I may say so, are compelled to remain at liberty.
(17.) Those who love too violently at first, soon contribute individually to their loving one another less, and, finally, to their not loving one another any longer. It is not so easy to decide who is most to blame for this rupture, the man or the woman. Women accuse men of being inconstant, and men retort that women are fickle.
(18.) However particular we may be in love, we pardon more faults in love than in friendship.
(19.) It is a sweet revenge to a man who loves passionately to make an ungrateful mistress appear still more so, by his very actions.
(20.) It is a sorry circumstance to love when we have not a fortune large enough to render those whom we love so happy that there is nothing more they can wish for.
(21.) If a woman with whom we have been violently in love, and who has not returned our passion, afterwards renders us some important services, she will hardly meet with anything but ingratitude.
(22.) A lively gratitude denotes a great esteem and affection for the person who lays us under some obligation.
(23.) To be in the company of those whom we love satisfies us; it does not signify whether we dream of them, speak or not speak to them, think of them or think of indifferent things, as long as we are near them.
(24.) Hatred is nearer to friendship than antipathy is.