(25.) It seems that antipathy changes oftener into love than into friendship.
(26.) We confide our secret to a friend, but in love it escapes us.
It is possible to enjoy some peopleʼs confidence, and yet not their affections; he who possesses these needs no trusting, no confidence; everything is open to him.
(27.) In friendship we only see those faults which may be prejudicial to our friends; in those whom we love we discern no faults but those by which we suffer ourselves.
(28.) The first tiff in love, as the first fault in friendship, is the only one of which we are able to make good use.
(29.) Methinks that if an unjust, eccentric, and groundless suspicion has been called jealousy, that other jealousy which is just, natural, founded on reason and on experience, deserves some other name.
Our natural disposition has no small share in jealousy which does not always spring from a great passion. Yet it is a paradox for a violent love not to be esoteric.
Our idiosyncrasy often causes no suffering to any one but to ourselves; but in jealousy we suffer ourselves and give pain to others.
Those women who do not respect any of our feelings and give us so many opportunities of becoming jealous, should not be worthy of our jealousy if we were guided rather by their sentiments and conduct than by our affections.