Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.

The delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new course of reading, imparts the vivacity and novelty of youth even to old age.

The art of conversation is to be prompt without being stubborn, to refute without argument, and to clothe great matters in a motley garb.

Life is not dated merely by years. Events are sometimes the best calendars.

If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.

We can know nothing of humankind without knowing something of ourselves. Self-knowledge is the property of those people whose passions have their full play, but who ponder over their results.

The greatest of all evils is a weak government