Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions.

Fortune cures us of many faults that reason could not.

Esteem never makes ingrates.

A man often thinks he rules himself, when all the while he is ruled and managed; and while his understanding directs one design, his affections imperceptibly draw him into another.

Too great refinement is false delicacy, and true delicacy is solid refinement.

Our probity is not less at the mercy of fortune than our property.

Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.