It is safer to do most men harm than to do them too much good.

We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.

What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them.

Self-love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.

Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear.

Perfect courage and utter cowardice are two extremes which rarely occur.

The vivacity that augments with years is not far from folly.