It is not enough that we should succeed, but our friends must fail as well.

Commonplace minds usually condemn what is beyond the reach of their understanding.

The evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and hatred as our good qualities.

The moderation of men in the most exalted fortunes is a desire to be thought above those things that have raised them so high.

Nothing is more contagious than example, and no man does any exceeding good or exceeding ill but it spawns new deeds of the same kind. The good we imitate through emulation, the ill through the malignity of our nature, which shame keeps locked up, but example sets free.

One kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.