The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.

The sure way to be cheated is to think one's self more cunning than others.

I always say to myself, what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment.

The qualities we have, make us so ridiculous as those which we affect.

We often see malefactors, when they are led to execution, put on resolution and a contempt of death which, in truth, is nothing else but fearing to look it in the face--so that this pretended bravery may very truly be said to do the same good office to their mind that the blindfold does to their eyes.

Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongsto us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others.

We acknowledge that we should not talk of our wives; but we seem not to know that we should talk still less of ourselves.