Pettiness of mind, ignorance and presumption are the cause of stubbornness, because stubborn people only want to believe what they themselves can imagine, and they can imagine very few things.

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.

It is vain and useless to survey everything that goes on in the world if our study does not help us mend our ways.

There is nothing that does not have something perfect in it; and it is the happiness of good taste to be able to find this perfection in all things. But there is a natural malignity that often discovers a vice in the midst of several virtues, in order to reveal and proclaim the discovery to all the world - a quality that is more the mark of a naturally evil temperament than a superior sense of discrimination. And it is truly an evil lot, to pass one's life always feeding off the imperfections of others.

This imperiousness which aids us in all things is merely a fitting authority which comes from superior spirit.

Those who foolishly pride themselves on their nobility mistake that which makes them noble, for it is only the virtue of their ancestors that gives them noble blood.

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.