There are few people more convinced of their own genius than those who complain of how stupid they are.

Men's happiness and misery depends altogether as much upon their own humor as it does upon fortune.

No matter how much care we put into hiding our passions under the appearances of devotion and honor, they can always be seen to peer out through these covers.

To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.

Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.

Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise.

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name.