The happiness and unhappiness of men depends as much on their ethics as on fortune.

It is a common fault never to be satisfied with our fortune, nor dissatisfied with our understanding.

You are never so easily fooled as when trying to fool someone else.

We love everything on our own account; we even follow our own taste and inclination when we prefer our friends to ourselves; and yet it is this preference alone that constitutes true and perfect friendship.

The boldest stroke and best act of friendship is not to disclose our own failings to a friend, but to show him his own.

Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a morecalculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.

Love of fame, fear of disgrace, schemes for advancement, desire to make life comfortable and pleasant, and the urge to humiliate others are often at the root of the valour men hold in such high esteem.