Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain.

Most men know what they hate, few what they love.

Mystery is not profoundness.

The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.

Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs; for truth, like light, travels only in straight lines.

Pity a thing often avowed, seldom felt; hatred is a thing often felt, seldom avowed.

The cynic who twitted Aristippus by observing that the philosopher who could dine on herbs might despise the company of a king, was well replied to by Aristippus, when he remarked that the philosopher who could enjoy the company or a king might also despise a dinner of herbs.