“The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.”

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.

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.

Hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.

A sadder but wiser man is a thousand times more agreeable to meet than the feller that never makes a mistake.

I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable.

Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty – his excessive freedom.

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.

Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.

A true disciple inquires not whether a fact is agreeable to his own reason.

You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal.