Rarest of all things on earth is the union in which both, by their contrasts, make harmonious their blending; each supplying the defects of the helpmate, and completing, by fusion, one strong human soul.


The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts. They bravely unveil their weaknesses, their doubts, their defects. They are courageous. They boldly ride a-tilt against prejudices. They love their fellow-men profoundly. They are generous. They allow their hearts to expand. They have compassion for all forms of suffering. Pity is the very foundation-stone of Genius.

Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power.


We don't love qualities, we love persons, sometimes for their defects as well as for their qualities.


Trust not yourself; but your defects to know. Make use of every friend - and every foe.

Never judge a work of art by its defects.

Children are very nice observers, and they will often perceive your slightest defects. In general, those who govern children forgive nothing in them but everything in themselves.




The institutions of a country depend in great measure on the nature of its soil and situation. Many of the wants of man are awakened or supplied by these circumstances. To these wants, manners, laws, and religion must shape and accommodate themselves. The division of land, and the rights attached to it, alter with the soil; the laws relating to its produce, with its fertility. The manners of its inhabitants are in various ways modified by its position. The religion of a miner is not the same as the faith of a shepherd, nor is the character of the ploughman so war-like as that of the hunter. The observant legislator follows the direction of all these various circumstances. the knowledge of the natural advantages or defects of a country thus form an essential part of political science and history.


Our chief wisdom consists in knowing our follies and faults, that we may correct them. True wisdom is a thing very extraordinary. Happy are they that have it; and next to them, not the many that think they have it, but the few that are sensible of their own defects and imperfections, and know that they have it not.

As the prudent vintager eats only ripe grapes, and gathers not those which are green, so the eyes of a wise man rests only upon the virtue of others; whereas the eyes of the fool seeks only to discover in his neighbor vices and defects.

When the defects of others are perceived with too much clarity, it is because one possesses them oneself.

