In misfortune we often mistake dejection for constancy; we bear it without daring to look on it; like cowards, who suffer themselves to be murdered without resistance.

Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation. [However disappointment can always be removed if we remember it could have turned out worse.]

The violence done us by others is often less painful than that which we do to ourselves.

There are no accidents so unlucky from which clever people are not able to reap some advantage, and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.

Those only are despicable who fear to be despised.

We are always bored by the very people by whom it is vital not to be bored.

We endeavor to make a virtue of the faults we are unwilling to correct.