“Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.”

I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.

Coffee renders many foolish people temporarily capable of wise actions

The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.

There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.

Honor is unknown in despotic states.

Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them; thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.

The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.

There are bad examples which are worse than crimes; and more states have perished from the violation of morality than from the violation of law.

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.

Law should be like death, which spares no one.

Wherever I find envy I take a pleasure in provoking it: I always praise before an envious man those who make him grow pale.

There should be weeping at a man’s birth, not at his death.

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.

It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism.

You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure.

I Have often thought if the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool.

The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.

Where in this wide world can man find nobility without pride, friendship without envy, or beauty without vanity?

Vanity is the healthiest thing in life.

Luxury is the income tax of vanity. But it is so pleasant.

Vanity and narcissism – the compulsive need to be admired and praised – undermine one’s courage, for one then fights on someone else’s conviction rather than one’s own.