Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere

Those who write against vanity want the glory of having written well, and their readers the glory of reading well, and I who write this have the same desire, as perhaps those who read this have also.

Justice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools are too blunt to touch them accurately.

Which is the more believable of the two, Moses or China?

Nothing is so conformable to reason as to disavow reason.

We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

Vanity is but the surface.