The foolish acts of others ought to serve more as a lesson to us than an occasion to laugh at those who commit them.

It is a singular characteristic of love that we cannot hide it where it exists, or pretend it where it does not exist.

We are more put off by people who parade their dignity than by people who show off their wardrobes. When people have to trick themselves out to gain attention, it is a sure sign that they are unworthy of it. If we want to make ourselves worthy, we can do so only by the innate eminence conferred by virtue. We hold great people in esteem more for the qualities of their soul than for the qualities of their fortune.

When High and Mighty people want to make us believe that they possess some good quality which they in fact do not have, it is dangerous to show that you doubt them; because, by removing their hope of deceiving the world, you also remove their desire to perform the good acts that might have arisen from their very pretensions.

Those who foolishly pride themselves on their nobility mistake that which makes them noble, for it is only the virtue of their ancestors that gives them noble blood.

The ties of virtue ought to be closer than the ties of blood, since the good man is closer to another good man by their similarity of morals than the son is to his father by their similarity of face.

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.