There are few people who are more often in the wrong than those who cannot endure to be so.

Fearlessness is a more than ordinary strength of mind, which raises the soul above the troubles, disorders, and emotions which theprospect of great dangers are used to produce. And by this inward strength it is that heroes preserve themselves in a calm and quiet state, and enjoy a presence of mind and the free use of their reason in the midst of those terrible accidents that amaze and confound other people.

The thing that makes our friendships so short and changeable is that the qualities and dispositions of the soul are very hard to know, and those of the understanding and wit very easy.

Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.

Self-interest speaks all manner of tongues and plays all manner of parts, even that of disinterestedness.

Some people are so extremely whiffling and inconsiderable that they are as far from any real faults as from substantial virtues.

No accidents are so unlucky [bad] but that the wise may draw some advantage [good] from them.