Virtue would not make such advances if there were not a little vanity to keep it company.

Often we are firm from weakness, and audacious from timidity.

The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself.

Great men's honor ought always to be measured by the methods they made use of in attaining it.

We label judges with having the meanest motives, and yet we desire that our reputation and fame should depend upon the judgment of men, who are all, either from their jealousy or preoccupation or want of intelligence, opposed to us - and yet despite their bias, just for the sake of making these men decide in our favor, we peril in so many ways both our peace and our life.

Whatever pretext we may give for our affections, often it is only interest and vanity which cause them.

The qualities we have, make us so ridiculous as those which we affect.