No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends as to give them no cause to miss him less.

There are some souls so base and filthy that they love gain and interest as noble souls love fame and virtue, knowing one pleasure only, that of making money or of not losing it; anxious and avid for their ten per cent; entirely preoccupied with what is owed them; forever concerned about the depreciation or discredit of money; buried, and as it were engulfed, amid contracts, title-deeds and parchments. Such people are neither parents, friends, citizens or Christians, nor, perhaps, even men; they merely have money.

How happy the station which every moment furnishes opportunities of doing good to thousands! How dangerous that which every moment exposes to the injuring of millions!

The same vices which are huge and insupportable in others we do not feel in ourselves.

There are but three events which concern man: birth, life and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.

There is not in the world so toilsome a trade as the pursuit of fame; life concludes before you have so much as sketched your work.

When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it.