Let it be your maxim through life, to know all you can know, yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the information of others.

We are, in truth, more than half what we are by imitation.

At any age we must cherish illusions, consolatory or merely pleasant; in youth, they are omnipresent; in old age we must search for them, or even invent them. But with all that, boredom is their natural and inevitable accompaniment.

Never write down your speeches beforehand; if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater.

In friendship, as well as in love, the mind is often the dupe of the heart.

If originally it was not good for a man to be alone, it is much worse for a sick man to be so; he thinks too much of his distemper, and magnifies it.

There is not a more prudent maxim, than to live with one's enemies as if they may one day become one's friends; as it commonly happens, sooner or later, in the vicissitudes of political affairs.