We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.

A man does not please long when he has only species of wit.

However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.

He is safe who admits no one to his confidence.

Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble.

Novelty is to love like bloom to fruit; it gives a luster which is easily effaced, but never returns.

Some crimes get honor and renown by being committed with more pomp, by a greater number, and in a higher degree of wickedness thanothers. Hence it is that public robberies, plunderings, and sackings have been looked upon as excellencies and noble achievements, and the seizing of whole countries, however unjustly and barbarously, is dignified with the glorious name of gaining conquests.