Without humility, we keep all our defects; and they are only crusted over by pride, which conceals them from others, and often from ourselves.

There are heroes of wickedness, as there are of goodness.

We have more ability than will power, and it is often an excuse to ourselves that we imagine that things are impossible.

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

Imagination does not enable us to invent as many different contradictions as there are by nature in every heart.

Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name, nevertheless one can say it is the good sense of pride, the most noble way of receiving praise.

There are heroes in evil as well as in good.