Envy is more incapable of reconciliation than hatred is.

Our good qualities expose us more to hatred and persecution than all the ill we do.

When our vices leave us, we like to imagine it is we who are leaving them.

Criticism sometimes is really praise, and praise sometimes slander.

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.

Nothing should lessen our satisfaction with ourselves as much as when we notice that we disapprove of something at one time that we approve of at another time.

It is most difficult to speak when we are ashamed of being silent.