We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

It is easier to deceive yourself, and to do so unperceived, than to deceive another.

We come altogether fresh and raw into the several stages of life, and often find ourselves without experience, despite our years.

It may be said that the vices await us in the journey of life like hosts with whom we must successively lodge; and I doubt whether experience would make us avoid them if we were to travel the same road a second time.

The caprice of our temper is even more whimsical than that of Fortune.

The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.