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.

We judge matters so superficially that ordinary acts and words, done and spoken with some flair and some knowledge of worldly matters, often succeed better than the greatest cleverness.

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.

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

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.

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.

Honest and sincere acts mislead the wicked and cause them to lose their path to their own goals, because mean-spirited people usually believe that people never act without deceit.