My view is that it is desirable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than loved.

Is it better to be loved or feared?

We try to make virtues out of the faults we have no wish to correct

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud,if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.

We try to make a virtue of vices we are loth to correct.

It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our nobler qualities. It is in our follies that we are at one.

Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn.

... one would like to be both [loved and feared], but as it is difficult to combine both love and fear, if one has to choose between them it is far safer to be feared than loved

You will find it less easy to unroot faults than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of your faults, still less of others faults; in every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; rejoice in it and as you can, try to imitate it; and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.

Our wish to deserve the praise of others fortifies our virtue, and praise accorded to intellect, valour, and beauty encourages these things to grow

Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.

We fear rejection, want attention, crave affection and dream of perfection.

A virtue must be our invention; it must spring out of our personal need and defence.

Believe me, my friends, it is with talents as with virtue; one must love them for their own sake, or entirely renounce them. And neither of them is acknowledged and rewarded, except when their possessor can practise them unseen, like a dangerous secret.