Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves.

Weak people cannot be sincere.

In every walk of life each man puts on a personality and outward appearance so as to look what he wants to be thought; in fact you might say that society is entirely made up of assumed personalities.

On why I don't trust democracy without extremely powerful systems of accountability and recall What seems to be generosity is often only disguised ambition - which despises small interests to gain great ones.

We are never so easily deceived as when we imagine we are deceiving others.

Criticism sometimes is really praise, and praise sometimes slander.

Those who are overreached by our cunning are far from appearing to us as ridiculous as we appear to ourselves when the cunning of others has overreached us.