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

In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope of further favors.

The sure way to be cheated is to think one’s self more cunning than others.

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

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.

There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations.

The accent of one’s birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one’s speech.

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

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

Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.

Nothing is impossible; there are ways that lead to everything, and if we had sufficient will we should always have sufficient means. It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.

The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.

In sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.

We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.

We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.

We are easily comforted for the misfortunes of our friends, when those misfortunes give us an occasion of expressing our affection and solicitude.

We say little, when vanity does not make us speak.

Folly often goes beyond her bounds, but impudence knows none.

Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others – only to lose it over themselves.

For there is no folly so great as keeping one’s sorrows hidden.

The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

A cold and moist brain is an inseparable companion to folly.

Christians ought to eliminate their folly. They ought to adopt God’s view of the absolute impossibility for their natural walk to please Him. They must dare to allow the Holy Spirit to point out to them every corruption of the soul life.

This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.