An appeal to a goodness which is not in him is, to a vain and sensitive soul, a stinging insult.

Praise — actual personal praise— oftener frets and embarrasses than it encourages. It is too small when too near.

Being wrong is a blow to the proud human ego.

Ill-timed admiration is enough to enrage a saint.

It is ill to praise, and worse to reprimand in matters that you do not understand.

It is bad if you praise, and worse if you reprove a thing, I mean, if you do not understand the matter well.

You do ill if you praise, and still worse if you reprove in a matter you do not understand.

To praise princes for virtues they do not possess is but to reproach them with impunity.

What occasion had you to praise me? praise is often hurtful to those on whom it is bestowed. A secret vanity springs up in the heart, blinds us, and conceals from us wounds that are ill cured. A seducer flatters us, and at the same time, aims at our destruction. A sincere friend disguises nothing from us, and from passing a light hand over the wound, makes us feel it the more intensely, by applying remedies. Why do you not deal after this manner with me? Will you be esteemed a base dangerous flatterer; or, if you chance to see any thing commendable in me, have you no fear that vanity, which is so natural to all women, should quite efface it? but let us not judge of virtue by outward appearances, for then the reprobates as well as the elect may lay claim to it. An artful impostor may, by his address gain more admiration than the true zeal of a saint.

Anyone who delights in praise destroys it.

Pitied? Horrid thought. The great thing in life was to be so situated that you can pity others. But to be pitied yourself?

To reproach a man with favours conferred is tantamount to an affront.

Among the many strange servilities mistaken for pieties, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world, and vilifying human nature.

Spite, spite, is the word of your undoing!