However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.

Extreme boredom provides its own antidote.

There is a form of eminence which does not depend on fate; it is an air which sets us apart and seems to prtend great things; it is the value which we unconsciously attach to ourselves; it is the quality which wins us deference of others; more than birth, position, or ability, it gives us ascendance.

Criticism sometimes is really praise, and praise sometimes slander.

What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love.

We are almost always bored by just those whom we must not find boring.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.