Great affectation and great absence of it are at first sight very similar.

The love of admiration leads to fraud, much more than the love of commendation; but, on the other hand, the latter is much more likely to spoil our: good actions by the substitution of an inferior motive.

In our judgment of human transactions, the law of optics is reversed, we see most dimly the objects which are close around us.

Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.

The Eastern monarch who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure, would have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be blameless.

Anger requires that the offender should not only be made to grieve in his turn, but to grieve for that particular wrong which has been done by him.

Manners are one of the greatest engines of influence ever given to man.