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

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.

Neither love nor fire can subsist without perpetual motion; both cease to live so soon as they cease to hope, or to fear.

A readiness to believe ill of others, before we have duly examined it, is the effect of laziness and pride. We are eager to find aculprit, and loath to give ourselves the trouble of examining the crime.

We are inconsolable at being deceived by our enemies and being betrayed by our friends, yet we are often content in be being treated like that by our own selves.

Our enemies' opinion of us comes closer to the truth than our own.

Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.