He that has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others, or with himself.

Heroism, self-denial, and magnanimity, in all instances where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another.

The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence.

It is an easy and vulgar thing to please the mob, and not a very arduous task to astonish them; but essentially to benefit and to improve them is a work fraught with difficulty, and teeming with danger.

Of all the passions, jealousy is that which exacts the hardest service, and pays the bitterest wages. Its service is to watch the success of one's enemy; its wages to be sure of it.

That an author's work is the mirror of his mind is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan himself were to write a book it would be in praise of virtue, because the good would purchase it for use, and the bad for ostentation.

Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.