Affected simplicity is a subtle imposture.

Idleness and fear keeps us in the path of duty, but our virtue often gets the praise.

We should not judge a man's merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them.

No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.

The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world.

Only the great can afford to have great defects.

It is difficult to define love; all we can say is, that in the soul it is a desire to rule, in the mind it is a sympathy, and in the body it is a hidden and delicate wish to possess what we love-Plus many mysteries.