A lie is an excuse guarded

You cannot reason a person out of something they were not reasoned into.

It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it.

There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.

Have you not observed that there is a lower kind of discretion and regularity, which seldom fails of raising men to the highest station in the court, the church, and the law?

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.

When a man of genius appears in the world, it is immediately recognized by the fact that all the blockheads join forces against him.