The fool only is troublesome. A plan of sense perceives when he is agreeable or tiresome; he disappears the very minute before he would have been thought to have stayed too long.

Avoid making yourself the subject of conversation.

The best thing next to wit is a consciousness that it is not in us; without wit, a man might then know how to behave himself, so as not to appear to be a fool or a coxcomb.

Widows, like ripe fruit, drop easily from their perch.

If you suppress the exorbitant love of pleasure and money, idle curiosity, iniquitous pursuits and wanton mirth, what a stillness would there be in the greatest cities.

The nearer we come to great men the more clearly we see that they are only men. They rarely seem great to their valets.

A woman is easily governed, if a man takes her in hand.