All violent love is involuntary hypocrisy.

The more ardent the lover the more artful the man.

The more one loves, the more one lies.

The reason of all this is very simple.

The first symptom of a profound passion is an all-absorbing
self-abnegation. The fondest dream of a heart really touched, is to make
for the loved one the most extraordinary and difficult sacrifice.

How hard it is to subdue the temper, or to change one's nature! yet from
the moment a man loves he is metamorphosed. If a miser, to please he
will become a spendthrift, and he who feared a shadow, learns to despise
death. The corrupt Don Juan emulates the virtuous Grandison, and,
earnest in his efforts, he believes himself to be really reformed,
converted, purified regenerated.

This happy transformation will last through the hopeful period. But as
soon as the remodelled pretender shall have a presentiment that his
metamorphosis is unprofitable; as soon as the implacable voice of
discouragement shall have pronounced those two magic words, by which
flights are stayed, thoughts paralyzed, and hopeful hearts deadened,
"Never! Impossible!" the probation is over and the candidate returns to
the old idols of graceless, dissolute nature.

The miser is shocked as he reckons the glittering gold he has wasted.
The quondam hero thinks with alarm of his borrowed valor, and turns pale
at the sight of his scars.