It is virtue which should determine us in the choice of our friends, without inquiring into their good or evil fortune.
Cheats easily believe others as bad as themselves; there is no deceiving them, nor do they long deceive.
One must laugh before one is happy, or one may die without ever laughing at all.
Wit is the god of moments, but Genius is the god of ages.
A woman is easily governed, if a man takes her in hand.
There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!