An egotist will always speak of himself, either in praise or in censure, but a modest man ever shuns making himself the subject of his conversation.

A person's worth in this world is estimated according to the value he puts on himself.

We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much: a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows and, but which all the world does not practice

The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.

One must laugh before one is happy, or one may die without ever laughing at all.

They who, without any previous knowledge of us, think amiss of us, do us no harm; they attack not us, but the phantom of their own imagination.

Two quite opposite qualities equally bias our minds - habits and novelty.