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

We would often rather seem dutiful to others than to succeed in our duties; and often we would rather tell our friends that we have done them good than to do good in actuality.

Good results are sometimes owing to a failure of judgment, because the faculty of judgment often hinders us from undertaking many things which would succeed if carried through without thinking.

Often the desire to appear competent impedes our ability to become competent, because we more anxious to display our knowledge than to learn what we do not know.

Self-love makes us deceive ourselves in almost all matters, to censure others, and to blame them for the same faults that we do not correct in ourselves; we do this either because we are unaware of the evil that exists within us, or because we always see our own evil disguised as a good.

Ignorance makes for weakness and fear; knowledge gives strength and confidence. Nothing surprises an intellect that knows all things with a sense of discrimination.

Although we should not love our friends for the good that they do us, it is a sign that they do not love us much if they do not do us good when they have the power to do so.