Few things are impossible in themselves: application to make them succeed fails us more often than the means.

The appearances of goodness and merit often meet with a greater reward from the world than goodness and merit themselves.

The judgments our enemies make about us come nearer to the truth than those we make about ourselves.

What we take for high-mindedness is very often no other than ambition well disguised, that scorns means interests, only to pursuegreater.

In growing old, we become more foolish - and more wise.

What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.

No fools are so difficult to manage as those with some brains.