Penetration has an air of divination; it pleases our vanity more than any other quality of the mind.

All our qualities, whether good or bad, are unstable and ambiguous, and almost all are at the mery of chance.

There may be talent without position, but there is no position without some kind of talent.

To praise great actions with sincerity may be said to be taking part in them.

What makes us so often discontented with those who transact business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the honor of succeeding in that which they have undertaken.

Beautiful coquettes are quacks of love.

The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object.