(24.) Hatred is nearer to friendship than antipathy is. (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. (30.) Coolness in friendship and the slackening of its ties, arise not without cause; in love there is hardly any other cause for our ceasing to love but that of having loved to excess. (31.) It is no more in our power to love always than it was not to love at all. (32.) Love receives its death-wound from aversion, and forgetfulness buries it. (33.) We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our perplexity when alone. (34.) To cease from loving is a distinct proof that the powers of man are limited and his affections as well. It is a weakness to love; it is sometimes another weakness to attempt the cure of it. We are cured in the same way as we are comforted, for we cannot always weep nor love with all our heart. (35.) There should be within the heart inexhaustible sources of grief for certain losses. It is seldom that either by our virtue or strength of mind we overcome a great affliction; we weep bitterly and are deeply moved, but afterwards we are either so weak or so flighty that we console ourselves.[191] (36.) When a plain-looking woman is loved, it is certain to be very passionately; for either her influence on her lover is irresistible, or she has some secret and more irresistible charms than those of beauty. (37.) For a long time visits among lovers and professions of love are kept up through habit, after their behaviour has plainly proved that love no longer exists.