Men are even lazier than they are timorous, and what they fear most is the troubles with which any unconditional honesty and nudity would burden them.

Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty.

To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled -- because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.

Fear is the mother of morality.

To show pity is felt as a sign of contempt because one has clearly ceased to be an object of fear as soon as one is pitied.

Fear is the mother of morality