Confidence always pleases those who receive it. It is a tribute we pay to their merit, a deposit we commit to their trust, a pledge that gives them a claim upon us, a kind of dependence to which we voluntarily submit.

Pride has a greater share than goodness in the reproofs we give other people for their faults; and we chide them not so much to make them mend those faults as to make them believe that we ourselves are without fault.

Sometimes accidents happen in life from which we have need of a little madness to extricate ourselves successfully

Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.

Whatever distrust we may have of the sincerity of those who converse with us, we always believe they will tell us more truth than they do to others.

Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.

Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.