The Height Of Cleverness Is To Be

We Sometimes Differ More Widely From Ourselves Than We Do From Others.

That Which Occasions So Many Mistakes In The Computations Of Men, When They Expect Return For Favors, Is That The Giver's Pride And The Receiver's Cannot Agree Upon The Value Of The Kindness Done.

Sincerity Is An Openness Of Heart; We Find It In Very Few People; What We Usually See Is Only An Artful Dissimulation To Win The Confidence Of Others.

Absence Diminishes Mediocre Passions And Increases Great Ones, As The Wind Extinguishes Candles And Fans Fires.

Clemency, Which We Make A Virtue Of, Proceeds Sometimes From Vanity, Sometimes From Indolence, Often From Fear, And Almost Always From A Mixture Of All Three.