When we exaggerate our friends' tenderness towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own virtue.

Sometimes we think we dislike flattery, but it is only the way it is done that we dislike.

Weakness is more opposed to virtue than is vice.

Conceit causes more conversation than wit.

What renders other people's vanity insufferable is that it wounds our own.

There are some persons who only disgust with their abilities, there are persons who please even with their faults.

The judgments our enemies make about us come nearer to the truth than those we make about ourselves.