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.

We always get bored with those whom we bore.

The extreme pleasure we take in speaking of ourselves should make us apprehensive that it gives hardly any to those who listen to us.

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.

How can we be answerable for what we shall want in the future, since we have no clear idea of what we want now?

It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.

It is harder to hide the feelings we have than to feign the ones we do not have.