It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.

Affected simplicity is an elegant imposture.

Preserving the serious health condition is usually painful.

Some disguised deceits counterfeit truth so perfectly that not to be taken in by them would be an error of judgment.

Nature creates ability; luck provides it with opportunity.

The surest proof of being endowed with noble qualities is to be free from envy.

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.