The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.

However evil men may be they dare not be openly hostile to virtue, and so when they want to attack it they pretend to find it spurious , or impute crimes to it.

Considering how little the beginning or the ceasing to love is in our own power, it is foolish and unreasonable for the lover or his mistress to complain of one another's inconstancy.

We own up to minor failings, but only so as to convince others that we have no major ones.

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

We have more indolence in the mind than in the body.

Decency is the least of all laws, but yet it is the law which is most strictly observed.