The judgments our enemies make about us come nearer to the truth than those we make about ourselves.
Self-love is the love of a man’s own self, and of everything else for his own sake. It makes people idolaters to themselves, and tyrants to all the world besides.
None but great men are capable of having great flaws.
Fortune makes our virtues and vices visible, just as light does the objects of sight.
Virtue would not make such advances if there were not a little vanity to keep it company.
Virtues lose themselves in self-interest, as rivers in the sea.
Some people are so extremely whiffling and inconsiderable that they are as far from any real faults as from substantial virtues.
The older a fool is, the worse he is.
Men frequently do good only to give themselves opportunity of doing ill with impunity.
The appearances of goodness and merit often meet with a greater reward from the world than goodness and merit themselves.
It is easier for a man to be thought fit for an employment that he has not, than for one he stands already possessed of, and is exercising.
Our good qualities expose us more to hatred and persecution than all the ill we do.
The whimsicalness of our own humor is a thousand times more fickle and unaccountable than what we blame so much in fortune.
Fortune mends more faults in us than ever reason would be able to do.
We often are consoled by our want of reason for misfortunes that reason could not have comforted.
There are a great many simpletons who know themselves to be so, and who make a very cunning use of their own simplicity.
A weak mind is the only defect out of our power to mend.
Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.
It is often hard to determine whether a clear, open, and honorable proceeding is the result of goodness or of cunning.
The exceeding delight we take in talking about ourselves should give us cause to fear that we are giving but very little pleasureto our listeners.