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

We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.

One is never fortunate or as unfortunate as one imagines.

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

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

Old people love to give good advice; it compensates them for their inability to set a bad example.

Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind.

We get so much in the habit of wearing disguises before others that we finally appear disguised before ourselves.

Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.

However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.

The mind cannot long play the heart’s role.

We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.

Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.

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

We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones.

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

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

It is part of our refusal of the self-destructiveness of male-dominated society.

Self-confidence goes a long way and is very attractive to others.

To be able to have that self-respect for yourself and just that feeling of, OK.

I’m a self-taught musician, so I never really had the restrictions of any one instrument.

Clothes have always had a wonderful influence on my physical well-being as well as my self-assurance.

the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.

CEOs of top companies could probably use a dose of not-asking-for-raise behavior and less self-entitlement.

Self-Criticism is the secret weapon of democracy, and candor and confession are good for the political soul.