The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others.

We have no patience with other people's vanity because it is offensive to our own.

Old age is a tyrant, who forbids, under pain of death, the pleasures of youth.

It is a mighty error to suppose that none but violent and strong passions, such as love and ambition, are able to vanquish the rest. Even idleness, as feeble and languishing as it is, sometimes reigns over them; it usurps the throne and sits paramount over all the designs and actions of our lives, and imperceptibly wastes and destroys all our passions and all our virtues.

What keeps us from abandoning ourselves entirely to one vice, often, is the fact that we have several.

The moderation of men in the most exalted fortunes is a desire to be thought above those things that have raised them so high.

Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats.