Children are taught to fear and obey; the avarice, pride, or timidity of parents teaches children economy, arrogance, or submission. They are also encouraged to be imitators, a course to which they are already only too much inclined. No one thinks of making them original, courageous, independent.

Give help rather than advice.

Hope deceives more men than cunning does.

If it is true that vice can never be done away with, the science of government consists of making it contribute to the public good.

Few people are modest enough to be estimated at their true worth.

It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish.

If virtue were its own reward, it would no longer be a human quality, but supernatural.