Those whom the world has delighted to honor have oftener been influenced in their doings by ambition and vanity than by patriotism.

Instead of considering that the worst way to persuade or please others is to try thus strongly to please ourselves, and that to listen well and to answer well are some of the greatest charms we can have in conversation.

Eloquence: saying the proper thing and stopping.

Things often offer themselves to our mind in a more finished form in the very first thought, than we might have made them by muchart and study.

Death, like the sun, cannot be looked at steadily.

If it were not for the company of fools, a witty man would often be greatly at a loss.

Loyalty is in most people only a ruse used by self-interest to attract confidence.