Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power.

The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.

A man who does not endeavour to seem more than he is will generally be thought nothing of. We habitually make such large deductions for pretence and imposture that no real merit will stand against them. It is necessary to set off our good qualities with a certain air of plausibility and self-importance, as some attention to fashion is necessary.

Many a man would have turned rogue if he knew how.

The best way to make ourselves agreeable to others is by seeming to think them so. If we appear fully sensible of their good qualities they will not complain of the want of them in us.

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.

...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself.