A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.

Few things are more agreeable to self-love than revenge, and yet no cause so effectually restrains us from revenge as self-love. And this paradox naturally suggests another; that the strength of the community is not unfrequently built upon the weakness of those individuals that compose it.

Theory is worth but little, unless it can explain its own phenomena, and it must effect this without contradicting itself; therefore, the facts are sometimes assimilated to the theory, rather than the theory to the facts.

There can be no Christianity where there is no charity

Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.

None of us are so much praised or censured as we think.

Wit in women is a jewel, which, unlike all others, borrows lustre from its setting, rather than bestows it; since nothing is so easy as to fancy a very beautiful woman extremely witty.