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

There is little advantage in pleasing ourselves when we please no one else, for our great self-love is often chastised by the scorn of others.

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.

It is a very common failing, never to be pleased with our fortune nor displeased with our character.

The shame that comes to us as we see ourselves praised when we are unworthy of it often gives us the occasion to accomplish things that we might never have achieved without such undeserved praise.

Study and research into truth often only serves to make us see by experience our natural ignorance.

There is no more reason to accuse ourselves excessively of our failings than to excuse them overmuch. He who goes overboard in self-criticism often does so in order not to suffer others' criticisms, or else does so out of a kind of vanity that wishes to make others believe that he knows how to confess his faults.