No matter how much care we put into hiding our passions under the appearances of devotion and honor, they can always be seen to peer out through these covers.

However evil men may be they dare not be openly hostile to virtue, and so when they want to attack it they pretend to find it spurious , or impute crimes to it.

It seems that nature, which has so wisely disposed our bodily organs with a view to our happiness, has also bestowed on us pride, to spare us the pain of being aware of our imperfections.

Propriety is the least of all laws, and the most observed.

All the passions are nothing else than different degrees of heat and cold of the blood.

We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.

We often in our misfortunes take that for constancy and patience which is only dejection of mind; we suffer without daring to holdup our heads, just as cowards let themselves be knocked on the head because they have not courage to strike back.