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.

Pettiness of mind, ignorance and presumption are the cause of stubbornness, because stubborn people only want to believe what they themselves can imagine, and they can imagine very few things.

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.

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

It is a strength of character to acknowledge our failings and our strong points, and it is a weakness of character not to remain in harmony with both the good and the bad that is within us.

Virtue is not always where it seems to be. People sometimes acknowledge favors only to maintain their reputations, and to make themselves more impudently ungrateful for favors that they do not wish to acknowledge.

There is a certain hidden mediocrity in those who are stationed above us in life, an ability to take liberties in their pursuit of pleasures and diversions, without injuring the honor and respect we owe to them.