When you are obliged to make a statement that you know will cause displeasure, you must say it with every appearance of sincerity; this is the only way to make it palatable.

It's easier to fight one's enemies than to get on with one's friends.

Every man whom chance alone has, by some accident, made a public character, hardly ever fails of becoming, in a short time, a ridiculous private one.

Weakness has many stages. There is a difference between feebleness by the impotency of the will, of the will to the resolution, of the resolution to the choice of means, of the choice of the means to the application.

Great men help dazzle the people; after that, they dazzle themselves even more dangerously.

A man who never trusts himself never trusts anyone.

Nothing sways the stupid more than arguments they can't understand.