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.

Misers are neither relations, nor friends, nor citizens, nor Christians, nor perhaps even human beings.

Every hour in itself, as it respects us in particular, is the only one we can call our own.

Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.

There is what is called the highway to posts and honor, and there is a cross and by way, which is much the shortest.

Life is a kind of sleep: old men sleep longest, nor begin to wake but when they are to die.

Duty is what goes most against the grain, because in doing that we do only what we are strictly obliged to, and are seldom much praised for it.