What makes vanity so insufferable to us, is that it hurts our own.

The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without it.

There is a form of eminence which does not depend on fate; it is an air which sets us apart and seems to prtend great things; it is the value which we unconsciously attach to ourselves; it is the quality which wins us deference of others; more than birth, position, or ability, it gives us ascendance.

Hypocrisy is an homage that vice renders to virtue.

Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.

When our vices desert us, we flatter ourselves that we are deserting our vices.

There are heroes in evil as well as in good.