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.

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.

When people reproach us, they only increase their own failings even as they are disclaiming them.

There is a certain manner of self-absorption in speaking that always renders the speaker disagreeable. For it is as great a folly to listen only to ourselves while we are carrying on a conversation with others as it is to talk to ourselves while we are alone.

Even the best-natured people, if uninstructed, are always blind and uncertain. We must take pains to instruct ourselves so that ignorance makes us neither too timid nor too bold.

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

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.