Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.
Give Dayrolles a chair.
I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments.
There will never be a better time to start quitting smoking than today.
Gratitude is a burden upon our imperfect nature.
Honest error is to be pitied not ridiculed.
I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.
Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces; for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome.
Seek always for the best words and the happiest expression you can find.
If you will please people, you must please them in their own way.
A man who cannot command his temper should not think of being a man in business.
A man who tells nothing, or who tells all, will equally have nothing told him.
He adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon, by the most splendid eloquence.
Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.
The heart has such an influence over the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest.
Fear manifested invites danger...
Women, then, are only children of a larger growth.
Observe it, the vulgar often laugh, but never smile, whereas well-bred people often smile, and seldom or never laugh. A witty thing never excited laughter, it pleases only the mind and never distorts the countenance.
Unlike my subject will I frame my song, It shall be witty and it shan’t be long.
The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of superior genius.