We are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from others.

Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.

What renders us so changeable in our friendship is, that it is difficult to know the qualities of the soul, but easy to know those of the mind.

Often we are firm from weakness, and audacious from timidity.

Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name.