Nature has concealed at the bottom of our minds talents and abilities of which we are not aware.

As we grow older we grow both more foolish and wiser at the same time.

The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.

There are fine things that are more brilliant when they are unfinished than when finished too much.

Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them; and a man has attained it when he enjoys what he loves and desires himself, and not what other people think lovely and desirable.

Some people are so extremely whiffling and inconsiderable that they are as far from any real faults as from substantial virtues.

What makes the pain we feel from shame and jealousy so cutting is that vanity can give us no assistance in bearing them.