Chance corrects us of many faults that reason would not know how to correct.

Of all our faults, the one that we excuse most easily is idleness.

Gratitude is like credit; it is the backbone of our relations; frequently we pay our debts not because equity demands that we should, but to facilitate future loans.

What makes us so often discontented with those who transact business for us is that they almost always abandon the interest of their friends for the interest of the business, because they wish to have the honor of succeeding in that which they have undertaken.

Usually we praise only to be praised.

Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us.

Absence cools moderate passions, and inflames violent ones; just as the wind blows out candles, but kindles fires.