We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.

Fortunate persons hardly ever amend their ways: they always imagine that they are in the right when fortune upholds their bad conduct.

We easily forget our faults when no one knows them but ourselves.

Love of glory, fear of shame, greed for fortune, the desire to make life agreeable and comfortable, and the wish to depreciate others - all of these are often the causes of the bravery that is spoken so highly of by men.

Behind many acts that are thought ridiculous there lie wise and weighty motives.

Nature seems at each man's birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being.

Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself.