Great Throughts Treasury

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

"We like to divine others, but do not like to be divined ourselves."

"We have more than laziness in mind that in the body."

"We like to see others, but don't like others to see through us."

"We love everything on our own account; we even follow our own taste and inclination when we prefer our friends to ourselves; and yet it is this preference alone that constitutes true and perfect friendship."

"We love those who admire us, but not those whom we admire."

"We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it consists in a symmetry of which we know not the rules, and a secret conformity of the features to each other, as also to the air and complexion of the person."

"We may forgive those who bore us, we cannot forgive those whom we bore."

"We must not judge of a man's merits by his great qualities, but by the use he makes of them."

"We may seem great in an employment below our worth, but we very often look little in one that is too big for us."

"We may sooner be brought to love them that hate us, than them that love us more than we would have them do."

"We often do good in order that we may do evil with impunity."

"We need greater virtues to sustain good than evil fortune."

"We often believe we are constant under misfortunes when we are only dejected; and we suffer then without daring to look on them, like cowards who allow themselves to be killed through fear of defending themselves."

"We need not be much concerned about those faults which we have the courage to own."

"We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore."

"We often console ourselves for being unhappy by a certain pleasure in appearing so."

"We often forgive those who bore us, but cannot forgive those we bore."

"We often pardon those that annoy us, but we cannot pardon those we annoy."

"We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones."

"We often pass from love to ambition, but we hardly ever pass from ambition to love."

"We pardon to the extent that we love."

"We pardon as long as we love."

"We promise according to our hopes, but perform according to our selfishness and our fears."

"We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us."

"We seldom attribute common sense except to those who agree with us."

"We say little, when vanity does not make us speak."

"We say little if not egged on by vanity."

"We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them."

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

"We seldom find persons whom we acknowledge to be possessed of good sense, except those who agree with us in opinion."

"We should often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the motives behind them."

"We sometimes see a fool possessed of talent, but never of judgment."

"We sometimes think that we hate flattery, but we only hate the manner in which it is done."

"We should scarcely desire things ardently if we were perfectly acquainted with what we desire."

"We seldom praise anyone in good earnest, except such as admire us."

"We should wish for few things with eagerness, if we perfectly knew the nature of that which was the object of our desire."

"We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them."

"We speak little if not egged on by vanity."

"We would often be ashamed of our best actions if the world only knew the motives behind them."

"Weakness is more opposed to virtue than is vice."

"Weakness is the only fault that is incorrigible."

"Were we faultless, we would not derive such satisfaction from remarking the faults of others."

"Were we perfectly acquainted with the object, we should never passionately desire it."

"What causes us to like new acquaintances is not so much weariness of our old ones, or the pleasure of change, as disgust at not being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well, and the hope of being admired more by those who do not know so much about us."

"What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given."

"What is commonly called friendship is no more than a partnership; a reciprocal regard for one another's interests, and an exchange of good offices; in a word, a mere traffic, wherein self-love always proposes to be a gainer."

"Were we to take as much pains to be what we ought to be as we do to disguise what we really are, we might appear like ourselves without being at the trouble of any disguise at all."

"What is perfectly true is perfectly witty."

"What causes such a miscalculation in the amount of gratitude which men expect for the favors they have done, is, that the pride of the giver and that of the receiver can never agree as to the value of the benefit."