It is astonishing how much more anxious people are to lengthen life than to improve it; and as misers often lose large sums of money in attempting to make more, so do hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get more time to squander.

There are male as well as female gossips.

Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others.

A youth without fire is followed by an old age without experience.

Those graces which from their presumed facility encourage all to attempt an imitation of them, are usually the most inimitable.

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.

A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.