Remember, that when I speak of pleasures I always mean the elegant pleasures of a rational being, and not the brutal ones of a swine. I mean la bonne chère, short of gluttony; wine, infinitely short of drunkenness; play, without the least gaming; and gallantry, without debauchery.

The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of superior genius.

Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.

Fear manifested invites danger.

I have, by long experience, found women to be like Telephus's spear: if one end kills, the other cures.

Dispatch is the soul of business, and nothing contributes more to dispatch than method.

The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.