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

Be cheerful [and grateful for the good that you have]: do not brood over fond hopes unrealized until a chain is fastened on each thought and wound around the heart. Nature intended you to be the fountain-spring of cheerfulness and social life, and not the mountain of despair and melancholy.

The greatest luxury of riches is that they enable you to escape so much good advice.

We are pleased with one who instantly assents to our opinions, but we love a proselyte.

Many know how to please, but know not when they have ceased to give pleasure.

The apparent foolishness of others is but too frequently our own ignorance.

Always win fools first. They talk much, and what they have once uttered they will stick to; whereas there is always time, up to the last moment, to bring before a wise man arguments that may entirely change his opinion.