Politeness of the mind is to have delicate thoughts

The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.

People would not long remain in social life if they were not the dupes of each other.

Why can we remember the tiniest detail that has happened to us, and not remember how many times we have told it to the same person.

Our greediness so often troubles us, making us run after so many things at the same time, that while we too eagerly look after the least we miss the greatest.

Spiritual health is no more stable than bodily; and though we may seem unaffected by the passions we are just as liable to be carried away by them as to fall ill when in good health.

Humility is often only a feigned submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride.