Some disguised deceits counterfeit truth so perfectly that not to be taken in by them would be an error of judgment.

When we disclaim praise, it is only showing our desire to be praised a second time.

There is an excess both in happiness and misery above our power of sensation.

Nothing hinders a thing from being natural so much as the straining ourselves to make it seem so.

Most men, like plants, possess hidden qualities which chance discovers.

The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.

The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.