Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.

In the human heart one generation of passions follows another; from the ashes of one springs the spark of the next.

The desire which urges us to deserve praise strengthens our good qualities, and praise given to wit, valour, and beauty, tends to increase them.

The mark of extraordinary merit is to see those most envious of it constrained to praise.

The confidence which we have in ourselves give birth to much of that, which we have in others.

Virtue is to the soul what health is tot he body.

The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.