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

We nearly always make ourselves masters of those whom we know well, because he who is thoroughly understood is in some sense subject to those who understand him.

The loftiness of understanding embraces all. It requires as much spirit to suffer the failings of others as it does to appreciate their good qualities.

We learn as much by others' failings as by their teachings. Examples of imperfection is just as useful for achieving perfection as are models of competence and perfection.

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.

True merit does not depend on the times or on fashion. Those who have no other advantage than courtly manners lose it when they are away from court. But good sense, knowledge, and wisdom make their possessors knowledgeable and beloved in all ages and in all times.

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