Criticism sometimes is really praise, and praise sometimes slander.

Nothing hinders a thing from being natural so much as the straining ourselves to make it seem so.

Clemency, which we make a virtue of, proceeds sometimes from vanity, sometimes from indolence, often from fear, and almost always from a mixture of all three.

Idleness and constancy fix the mind to what it finds easy and agreeable. This habit always confines and cramps up our knowledge; and no one has ever taken the trouble to stretch and carry his understanding as far as it could go.

It is more often from pride than from defective understanding that people oppose established opinions: they find the best places taken in the good party and are reluctant to accept inferior ones.

To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.

Absence cools moderate passions, and inflames violent ones; just as the wind blows out candles, but kindles fires.