The intellect is always fooled by the heart.
What makes vanity so insufferable to us, is that it hurts our own.
We often bore others when we think we cannot possibly bore them.
Boredom ... causes us to neglect more duties than does interest.
Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted.
The cunningest dissimulation is when a man pretends to be caught in the traps others set for him; and a man is never so easily over-reached as when he is contriving to over-reach others.