When a man of genius appears in the world, it is immediately recognized by the fact that all the blockheads join forces against him.

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

Love of flattery, in most men, proceeds from the mean opinion they have of themselves; in women, from the contrary.

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

I used to wonder how a man of birth and spirit could endure to be wholly insignificant and obscure in a foreign country, when he might live with lustre in his own.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning etc., beginning from his youth, and so go to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.