A man is sometimes as different from himself as he is from others.

A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.

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

Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.

Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.

Jealousy springs more from love of self than from love of another.

Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.

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.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

Many men are contemptuous of riches; few can give them away.

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.

However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.

Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.

Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.

Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while.