Always make the best of the best, and never make bad worse.

Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.

I love every-day senses, every-day wit and entertainment; a man who is only good on holidays, is good for very little.

As kings are begotten and born like other men, it is to be presumed that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they thesame education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so that they seem to be a species by themselves.... Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their infancy, like old drinkers, they require dreams.

It may be objected, that I am now recommending dissimulation to you; I both own and justify it. It has been long said: Qui nescitdissimular nescit regnare: I go still farther, and say, that without some dissimulation, no business can be carried on at all.

People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.

Men are much more unwilling to have their weaknesses and their imperfections known than their crimes.