Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.

Revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude

No two things differ more than hurry and dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one. A weak man in office, like a squirrel in a cage, is laboring eternally, but to no purpose, and is in constant motion without getting on a job; like a turnstile, he is in everybody's way, but stops nobody; he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into everything but sees nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with those few that are, he only burns his fingers.

I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent.

There are circumstances of peculiar difficulty and danger, where a mediocrity of talent is the most fatal quantum that a man can possibly possess. Had Charles the First and Louis the Sixteenth been more wise or more weak, more firm or more yielding, in either case they had both of them saved their heads.

Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control; but he that wooes her with opportunity and importunity will seldom court her in vain.

The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.