Those whom the world has delighted to honor have oftener been influenced in their doings by ambition and vanity than by patriotism.

Men frequently do good only to give themselves opportunity of doing ill with impunity.

True bravery means doing alone that which one could do if all the world were by.

Avarice misapprehends itself almost always. There is no passion which more often will miss its aim, nor upon which the present has so much influence to the prejudice of the future.

One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him.

The intellect is always fooled by the heart.

Lovers, when they are no longer in love, find it very hard to break up.