He is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself.

A vain man can never be altogether rude. Desirous as he is of pleasing, he fashions his manners after those of others.

Most man only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.

The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.

Man's restlessness makes him strive.

Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.

There is no better deliverance from the world than through art, and a man can form no surer bond with it.

A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

We can really respect a man only if he doesn't always look out for himself.