All the world says of a coxcomb that he is a coxcomb; but no one dares to say so to his face, and he dies without knowing it.

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.

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

False modesty is the refinement of vanity. It is a lie.

It is often easier as well as more advantageous to conform to other men's opinions than to bring them over to ours.

From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.

There are only two ways by which to rise in this world, either by one's own industry or by the stupidity of others.