It is said of a man that he will soon die, when he acts in any way unlike himself.
What kind of faults in ourselves should we retain, nay, even cultivate? Those which rather flatter other people than offend them.
The passions are good or bad qualities, only intensified.
Our passions are, in truth, like the phoenix. When the old one burns away, the new one rises out of its ashes at once.
Great passions are hopeless diseases. That which could cure them is the first thing to make them really dangerous.