The only security is courage.

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

Whilst weakness and timidity keep us to our duty, virtue has often all the honor.

We label judges with having the meanest motives, and yet we desire that our reputation and fame should depend upon the judgment of men, who are all, either from their jealousy or preoccupation or want of intelligence, opposed to us - and yet despite their bias, just for the sake of making these men decide in our favor, we peril in so many ways both our peace and our life.

There is an excess both in happiness and misery above our power of sensation.

Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is only the way it is done that we dislike.

It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.