The reason we do not let our friends see the very bottom of our hearts is not so much distrust of them as distrust of ourselves.

Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.

Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.

Tastes in young people are changed by natural impetuosity, and in the aged are preserved by habit.

We should gain more by letting the world see what we are than by trying to seem what we are not.

Numberless arts appear foolish whose secret motives are most wise and weighty.

We are never so happy, nor so unhappy, as we suppose ourselves to be.