A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.

If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely.

There are no better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; and there is no true beauty without the signatures of these graces in the very countenance.

The world will tolerate many vices, but not their diminutives.

Rare almost as great poets, rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and martyrs; are consummate men of business. A man, to be excellent in this way, requires a great knowledge of character, with that exquisite tact which feels unerringly the right moment when to act. A discreet rapidity must pervade all the movements of his thought and action. He must be singularly free from vanity, and is generally found to be an enthusiast who has the art to conceal his enthusiasm.

Remember that in giving any reason at all for refusing, you lay some foundation for a future request.

What a blessing this smoking is! Perhaps the greatest that we owe to the discovery of America.