A beautiful woman, if poor, should use double circumspection; for her beauty will tempt others, her poverty herself.

Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good.

Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.

Those that know the least of others think the highest of themselves.

Shrewd and crafty politicians, when they wish to bring about an unpopular measure, must not go straight forward to work, if they do they will certainly fail; and failures to men in power, are like defeats to a general, they shake their popularity. Therefore, since they cannot sail in the teeth of the wind, they must tack, and ultimately gain their object, by appearing at times to be departing from it.

Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.

Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.