All the great amusements are dangerous for the Christian life.

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 are petty-minded people who cannot endure to be reminded of their ignorance because, since they are usually quite blind to all things, quite foolish, and quite ignorant, they never question anything, and are persuaded that they see clearly what in fact they never see at all, save through the darkness of their own dispositions.

Good fortune almost always makes some change in a man's behavior - in his manner of speaking and acting. It is a great weakness to want to bedeck oneself in qualities which are not his own. If he esteemed virtue above all other things, neither the favors of fortune nor the advantages of position would change a man's face or heart.

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.

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.

It is sometimes useful to pretend we are deceived, because when we show a deceiving man that we see through his artifices, we only encourage him to increase his deceptions.