It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.

The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve.

It is given to few persons to keep this secret well. Those who lay down rules too often break them, and the safest we are able to give is to listen much, to speak little, and to say nothing that that will ever give ground or regret.

Pride has a greater share than goodness in the reproofs we give other people for their faults; and we chide them not so much to make them mend those faults as to make them believe that we ourselves are without fault.

The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself.

There is no praise we have not lavished upon prudence; and yet she cannot assure to us the most trifling event.

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