Seek always for the best words and the happiest expression you can find.

To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.

An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.

A seeming ignorance is very often a most necessary part of worldly knowledge. It is, for instance, commonly advisable to seem ignorant of what people offer to tell you; and when they say, Have not you heard of such a thing? to answer No, and to let them go on, though you know it already.

Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you can;but never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will.

In nature the most violent passions are silent; in tragedy they must speak and speak with dignity too.