It seems to me that the spirit of politeness is a certain attention in causing that, by our words and by our manners, others may be content with us and with themselves.
I do not doubt but that genuine piety is the spring of peace of mind; it enables us to bear the sorrows of life, and lessens the pangs of death: the same cannot be said of hypocrisy.
Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior intellect can never taste.
Love and friendship exclude each other.
In Friendship we only see those faults which may be prejudicial to our friends. In love we see no faults but those by which we suffer ourselves.
One faithful Friend is enough for a man’s self, ’tis much to meet with such an one, yet we can’t have too many for the sake of others.
Men make the best friends.
It is virtue which should determine us in the choice of our friends, without inquiring into their good or evil fortune.
A man is thirty years old before he has any settled thoughts of his fortune; it is not completed before fifty. He falls to building in his old age, and dies by the time his house is in a condition to be painted and glazed.
There is no employment in the world so laborious as that of making to one’s self a great name; life ends before one has scarcely made the first rough draught of his work.
Too great carelessness, equally with excess in dress, multiplies the wrinkles of old age, and makes its decay still more conspicuous.
A simple garb is the proper costume of the vulgar; it is cut for them, and exactly suits their measure, but it is an ornament for those who have filled up their lives with great deeds. I liken them to beauty in dishabille, but more bewitching on that account.
What is certain in death is somewhat softened by what is uncertain; it is an indefiniteness in the time, which holds a certain relation to the infinite, and what is called eternity.
It is motive alone that gives real value to the actions of men, and disinterestedness puts the cap to it.
A man can deceive a woman by his sham attachment to her provided he does not have a real attachment elsewhere.
We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much: a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows and, but which all the world does not practice.
It is easier to enrich ourselves with a thousand virtues, than to correct ourselves of a single fault.
How happy the station which every moment furnishes opportunities of doing good to thousands! How dangerous that which every moment exposes to the injuring of millions!
The noblest deeds are well enough set forth in simple language; emphasis spoils them.
Days, months, years fly away, and irrecoverably sink in the abyss of time.