We would often rather seem dutiful to others than to succeed in our duties; and often we would rather tell our friends that we have done them good than to do good in actuality.

Pettiness of mind, ignorance and presumption are the cause of stubbornness, because stubborn people only want to believe what they themselves can imagine, and they can imagine very few things.

To be too dissatisfied with ourselves is a weakness. To be too satisfied with ourselves is a stupidity.

It is a singular characteristic of love that we cannot hide it where it exists, or pretend it where it does not exist.

We prefer people who are trying to imitate us more than those who are trying to equal us. This is because imitation is a sign of esteem, but the desire to equal others is a sign of envy.

Honest and sincere acts mislead the wicked and cause them to lose their path to their own goals, because mean-spirited people usually believe that people never act without deceit.

It is vain and useless to survey everything that goes on in the world if our study does not help us mend our ways.

Sometimes we praise the way things used to be in order to blame the present, and we esteem what is no longer in order to scorn what is.

Mean-spirited mediocrities, especially those with a smattering of learning, are the most likely to be opinionated. Only strong minds know how to correct their opinions and abandon a bad position.

Even the best-natured people, if uninstructed, are always blind and uncertain. We must take pains to instruct ourselves so that ignorance makes us neither too timid nor too bold.

Criticism should awaken our attention, not inflame our anger. We should listen to, and not flee from, those who contradict us. Truth should be our cause, no matter in what manner it comes to us.

On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.

...if anyone who speaks up to criticise something obviously evil is punished merely for speaking, civilisation will be in a bad way.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

Laughter can relieve tension, soothe the pain of disappointment, and strengthen the spirit for the formidable tasks that always lie ahead.

I love the friends I have gathered together on this thin raft.

Eating in a hurried or unconscious way, as so many of us have learned to do, is like receiving a love letter from the earth, but never taking the time to carefully read it.

Ninety percent of what's wrong with singers today is that they don't breathe right.

We live under a prince who is an enemy to fraud, a prince whose eyes penetrate into the heart, and whom all the art of impostors can't deceive.

...reality, the name we give to the common experience.

Whom the gods wish to destroy, they give unlimited resources.