We often are consoled by our want of reason for misfortunes that reason could not have comforted.

Passion often makes fools of the wisest men and gives the silliest wisdom.

Nothing ought in reason to mortify our self-satisfaction more that the considering that we condemn at one time what we highly approve and commend at another.

There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness.

It is given to few persons to keep this secret well. Those who lay down rules too often break them, and the safest we are able to give is to listen much, to speak little, and to say nothing that that will ever give ground or regret.

It is easier to appear worthy of a position one does not hold, than of the office which one fills.

That which occasions so many mistakes in the computations of men, when they expect return for favors, is that the giver's pride and the receiver's cannot agree upon the value of the kindness done.