We seldom praise anyone in good earnest, except such as admire us.
Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.
Great souls are not those who have fewer passions and more virtues than others, but only those who have greater designs.
If we resist our passions, it is more due to their weakness than our strength.
In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.
It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.
Nothing prevents one from appearing natural as the desire to appear natural.
Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.
Perfect Valor is to do, without a witness, all that we could do before the whole world.
Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can’t quite name.
Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it.
That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest.
The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.
The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices.
The passions are the only orators which always persuade.
There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.
There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess.
There is nothing men are so generous of as advice.
Those that have had great passions esteem themselves for the rest of their lives fortunate and unfortunate in being cured of them.
Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.