Reason is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.

The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.

The Refinement of Shame. People are not ashamed to think something foul, but they are ashamed when they think these foul thoughts are attributed to them.

Whoever deliberately attempts to insure confidentiality with another person is usually in doubt as to whether he inspires that person's confidence in him. One who is sure that he inspires confidence attaches little importance to confidentiality.

Fathers and sons are much more considerate of one another than mothers and daughters.

Marriage was contrived for ordinary people, for people who are capable of neither great love nor great friendship, which is to say, for most people--but also for those exceptionally rare ones who are capable of love as well as of friendship.

The rising and falling of the scales of pride and humility sustain the brooding mind as well as the alternations of desire and peace of the soul.