We acknowledge that we should not talk of our wives; but we seem not to know that we should talk still less of ourselves.

A small degree of wit, accompanied by good sense, is less tiresome in the long run than a great amount of wit without it.

He is safe who admits no one to his confidence.

Praise is a more ingenious, concealed, and subtle kind of flattery, that satisfies both the giver and the receiver, though by verydifferent ways. The one accepts it as a reward due to his merit; the other gives it that he may be looked upon as a just and discerning person.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

All our qualities, whether good or bad, are unstable and ambiguous, and almost all are at the mery of chance.

There are few occasions when we should make a bad bargain by giving up the good on condition that no ill was said of us.