It is as proper to have pride in oneself as it ridiculous to show it to others.

Instead of considering that the worst way to persuade or please others is to try thus strongly to please ourselves, and that to listen well and to answer well are some of the greatest charms we can have in conversation.

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

To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.

Youth is a continual intoxication; it is the fever of reason.

In the human heart one generation of passions follows another; from the ashes of one springs the spark of the next.

Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.