There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.

Gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it be a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.

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

If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.

There are many that despise half the world; but if there be any that despise the whole of it, it is because the other half despises them.

The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal.

The plainest man that can convince a woman that he is really in love with her has done more to make her in love with him than the handsomest man, if he can produce no such conviction. For the love of woman is a shoot, not a seed, and flourishes most vigorously only when ingrafted on that love which is rooted in the breast of another.