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.

The shortest and best way to make your fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their interest to promote yours.

To forget someone means to think of him.

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

False modesty is the masterpiece of vanity: showing the vain man in such an illusory light that he appears in the reputation of the virtue quite opposite to the vice which constitutes his real character; it is a deceit.

The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.

Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.