So blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer more to be damned than to be saved.

Women who are the least bashful are not unfrequently the most modest; and we are never more deceived than when we would infer any laxity of principle from that freedom of demeanor which often arises from a total ignorance of vice.

If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

There are many that despise half the world; but if there be any that despise the whole of it, it is because the other half despises them.

He that abuses his own profession will not patiently bear with any one else who does so. And this is one of our most subtle operations of self-love. For when we abuse our own profession, we tacitly except ourselves; but when another abuses it, we are far from being certain that this is the case.

We ask advice but we mean approbation.