True bravery means doing alone that which one could do if all the world were by.

Raillery is more insupportable than wrong; because we have a right to resent injuries, but are ridiculous in being angry at a jest.

To be a great man it is necessary to know how to profit by the whole of our good fortune.

We often pay our debts not because it is only fair that we should, but to make future loans easier.

Men have written in the most convincing manner to prove that death is no evil, and this opinion has been confirmed on a thousand celebrated occasions by the weakest of men as well as by heroes. Even so I doubt whether any sensible person has ever believed it, and the trouble men take to convince others as well as themselves that they do shows clearly that it is no easy undertaking.

The common foible of women who have been handsome is to forget that they are no longer so.

Our own distrust gives a fair pretence for the knavery of other people.