Don't lie, but don't tell the whole truth.

Even monarchs have need of authors, and fear their pens more than ugly women the painter's pencil.

Know the great men of your age.

Possession hinders enjoyment. It merely gives you the right to keep things for or from others, and thus you gain more enemies than friends.

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.

Display startling novelty-rise afresh like the sun every day. Change too the scene on which you shine, so that you rloss may be felt in the old scenes of your triumph, while the novelty of your powers wins applause in the new.

The sage never seems to know his own merits, for only by not noticing them can you call others' attention to them.