A coxcomb is the blockhead's man of merit.

Criticism is as often a trade as a science, requiring, as it does, more health than wit, more labour than capacity, more practice than genius.

You may drive a dog off the King's armchair, and it will climb into the preacher's pulpit; he views the world unmoved, unembarrassed, unabashed.

Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest ma to do.

Party loyalty lowers the greatest men to the petty level of the masses.

A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought.

It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing; if it is not covered with flowers, with fruit trees and grains, it produces briers and pines. It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious.