“The passions are the only orators which always persuade.”

The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve.

We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.

Some people displease with merit, and others’ very faults and defects are pleasing.

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.

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.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.

The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.

Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.

As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.

One forgives to the degree that one loves.

We have no patience with other people’s vanity because it is offensive to our own.

Never give anyone the advice to buy or sell shares, because the most benevolent price of advice can turn out badly.

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.