The most amiable people are those who least wound the self-love of others.

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

Women are extreme; they are better than men, or worse.

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

The pleasure a man of honor enjoys in the consciousness of having performed his duty is a reward he pays himself for all his pains.

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.

There are three great events in our lives: birth, life and death. Of birth we have no conscience; with death, we suffer; and, concerning life, we forget to live it.