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It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.
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.
If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources.
We have no patience with other people’s vanity because it is offensive to our own.
Nature seems at each man’s birth to have marked out the bounds of his virtues and vices, and to have determined how good or how wicked that man shall be capable of being.
Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.
No men are oftener wrong than those that can least bear to be so.
We are all strong enough to bear other men’s misfortunes.
Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples.
It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.