"Moderation is the feebleness and sloth of the soul, whereas ambition is the warmth and activity of it."

"Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them."

"Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with."

"Nature seems at each man's birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being."

"No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will."

"No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so."

"Nothing hinders a thing from being natural so much as the straining ourselves to make it seem so."

"Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like."

"One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines."

"Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too."

"Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side."

"Repentance is not so much remorse for what we have done as the fear of the consequences."

"Self-interest makes some people blind, and others sharp-sighted."

"Self-love is the greatest flatterer in the world."

"Some accidents there are in life that a little folly is necessary to help us out of."

"Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them."

"Some men are like ballads, that are in everyone's mouth a little while."

"Some people displease with merit, and others' very faults and defects are pleasing."

"That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest."

"Only the contemptible fear contempt."

"Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves."

"Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us."

"Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised."

"People always complain about their memories, never about their minds."

"People that are conceited of their own merit take pride in being unfortunate, that themselves and others may think them considerable enough to be the envy and the mark of fortune."

"People's personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not."

"Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone."

"Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it."

"Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself."

"The accent of a man's native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech."

"The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again."

"The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age."

"The desire of talking of ourselves, and showing those faults we do not mind having seen, makes up a good part of our sincerity."

"The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second."

"The force we use on ourselves, to prevent ourselves from loving, is often more cruel than the severest treatment at the hands of one loved."

"The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them."

"The greatest part of intimate confidences proceed from a desire either to be pitied or admired."

"The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken."

"The mind cannot long play the heart's role."

"The moderation of people in prosperity is the effect of a smooth and composed temper, owing to the calm of their good fortune."

"The name and pretense of virtue is as serviceable to self-interest as are real vices."

"The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve."

"The reason that lovers never weary each other is because they are always talking about themselves."

"The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others."

"The word virtue is as useful to self-interest as the vices."

"There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices."

"There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness."

"There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do."

"There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means."

"Where I grew up - we started out in Oklahoma and then moved to Missouri - it was considered hubris to talk about yourself. And the downside of that was that ideas rarely got exchanged, or true feelings."