It is an admirable skill to able to sweeten a refusal with civil words which atone for the favor which we are not able to grant.

It is neither a great praise nor a great blame when people say a tendency is in or out of fashion. If a tendency is as it should be at one time, it is always as it should be.

It is a very trying task for deceitful people, always to have to cover up their lack of sincerity and to repair the breaking of their word.

Nothing can tell us so much about the general lawlessness of humanity as a perfect acquaintance with our own immoderate behavior. If we would think over our own impulses, we would recognize in our own souls the guiding principle of all vices which we reproach in other people; and if it is not in our very actions, it will be present at least in our impulses. There is no malice that self-love will not offer to our spirits so that we may exploit any occasion, and there are few people virtuous enough not to be tempted.

Self-love is even deceived by self-love, because by looking out for our own interests and disregarding those of other people, we lose the advantage that comes with the exchange of favors.

Just as there is no action weaker or more unreasonable than to submit one's judgment to another's, where there is no advantage to oneself, so also there is nothing greater or wiser than to place oneself unquestioningly under God's judgment by believing in every word He speaks.

We nearly always make ourselves masters of those whom we know well, because he who is thoroughly understood is in some sense subject to those who understand him.