There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our firends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please, that is, as they please or displease us.

We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous; we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it.

People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it.

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.

The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.

The more we do, the more we can do.

We are all of us, more or less, the slaves of opinion.