The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.

The most clever and polite are content with only seeming attentive while we perceive in their mind and eyes that at the very time they are wandering from what is said and desire to return to what they want to say.

When fortune surprises us by giving us some great office without having gradually led us to expect it, or without having raised our hopes, it is well nigh impossible to occupy it well, and to appear worthy to fill it.

In friendship, as in love, we are often more happy from the things we are ignorant of than from those we are acquainted with.

There are certain people fated to be fools; they not only commit follies by choice, but are even constrained to do so by fortune.

Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too.

Our enemies' opinion of us comes closer to the truth than our own.