There are petty-minded people who cannot endure to be reminded of their ignorance because, since they are usually quite blind to all things, quite foolish, and quite ignorant, they never question anything, and are persuaded that they see clearly what in fact they never see at all, save through the darkness of their own dispositions.

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.

It is such a great fault to talk too much that, in business and conversation, if what is good is also brief, it is doubly good, and one gains by brevity what one often loses by an excess of words.

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.

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.

We need not regard what good a friend has done us, but only his desire to do us good.

We so love all new and unusual things that we even derive a secret pleasure from the saddest and most tragic events, both because of their novelty and because of the natural malignity that exists within us.