“Timidity is a fault for which it is dangerous to reprove persons whom we wish to correct of it.”

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.

We seldom find any person of good sense, except those who share our opinions.

How can we expect another to keep our secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves?

Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.

I also don’t believe that whatever comes after life depends on my correctly reciting a list of my transgressions…I don’t believe that what comes after depends on anything I do at all.

Since the nature of people is bad, to become corrected they must be taught by teachers and to be orderly they must acquire ritual and moral principles.

In antiquity the sage kings recognized that men’s nature is bad and that their tendencies were not being corrected and their lawlessness controlled.

Be politically correct, but please don’t bother other people with conversation about being politically correct, because that’s the end of everything. You want to create boredom? Be politically correct in your conversation.

There is no such thing as a politically correct war.

I can score the basketball, but I think I can pass pretty well or I can make the correct pass.

Start being biblically correct, instead of politically correct.

The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats.