“Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.”

What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.

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.

Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.

However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.

If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could never harm us.

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

A wise man thinks it more advantageous not to join the battle than to win.

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.

I was in Italy, but completely in love with the nouvelle vague movement, and directors like Godard, Truffaut, Demy. ‘The Dreamers’ was a total homage to cinema and that love for it.

All people, however fanatical they may be in their zeal to disparage and to fight capitalism, implicitly pay homage to it by passionately clamoring for the products it turns out

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.

To which Bible and Creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to Go