Never lose your self-respect, nor be too familiar with yourself when you are alone. Let your integrity itself be your own standard of rectitude, and be more indebted to the severity of your own judgment of yourself than to all external percepts. Desist from unseemly conduct, rather out of respect for your own virtue than for the strictures of external authority.

There is no wilderness like a life without friends; friendship multiplies blessings and minimizes misfortunes; it is a unique remedy against adversity, and it soothes the soul.

The great art of giving consists in this the gift should cost very little and yet be greatly coveted, so that it may be the more highly appreciated.

It is good to vary in order that you may frustrate the curious, especially those who envy you.

It is more offensive to outshine in dignity than in personal attractions.

It is a novel kind of supremacy, the best that life can offer, to have as servants by skill those who by nature are our masters.

Mix a little mystery with everything, for mystery arouses veneration.