All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich

Kiss the hand of him who can renounce what he has publicly taught when convicted of his error, and who, with heartfelt joy, embraces truth, though with the sacrifice of favourite opinions.

Who gives a trifle meanly is meaner than the trifle.

He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.

The greatest of characters, no doubt, would be he, who, free of all trifling accidental helps, could see objects through one grand immutable medium, always at hand, and proof against illusion and time, reflecting every object in its true shape and colour through all the fluctuation of things.

He who freely praises what he means to purchase, and he who enumerates the faults of what he means to sell, may set up a partnership with honesty.

Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it.