Virtue is not always where it seems to be. People sometimes acknowledge favors only to maintain their reputations, and to make themselves more impudently ungrateful for favors that they do not wish to acknowledge.

He who uses trickery should at least make use of his judgment to learn that he can scarcely hide treacherous conduct for very long among clever men who are determined to find him out, although they may pretend to be deceived in order to disguise their knowledge of his deceitfulness.

The loftiness of understanding embraces all. It requires as much spirit to suffer the failings of others as it does to appreciate their good qualities.

Social intercourse, even friendship among most people, is a merely a business arrangement that lasts only so long as there is need.

Even the best-natured people, if uninstructed, are always blind and uncertain. We must take pains to instruct ourselves so that ignorance makes us neither too timid nor too bold.

We think highly of men when we do not know the extent of their capabilities, for we always suppose that more exists when we only see half.

It is sometimes useful to pretend we are deceived, because when we show a deceiving man that we see through his artifices, we only encourage him to increase his deceptions.