Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit -- or a mask. . . . The foregoing maxim shows the difference between truth and sarcasm.

We imagine that the admiration of the works of celebrated men has become common, because the admiration of their names has become so.

A man is a hypocrite only when he affects to take a delight in what he does not feel, not because he takes a perverse delight in opposite things.

The same reason makes a man a religious enthusiast that makes a man an enthusiast in any other way ... an uncomfortable mind in an uncomfortable body.

When you find out a man's ruling passion, beware of crossing him in it.

Man is an intellectual animal, and therefore an everlasting contradiction to himself. His senses centre in himself, his ideas reach to the ends of the universe; so that he is torn in pieces between the two, without a possibility of its ever being otherwise.

A proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion, and does not seek to make converts to it.

A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself.

The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.