Nothing sharpens the arrow of sarcasm so keenly as the courtesy that polishes it; no reproach is like that we clothe with a smile and present with a bow.

Few fathers care much for their sons, or at least, most of them care more for their money. Of those who really love their sons, few know how to do it.

If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.

Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.

Keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices thatmay accompany it. Accept no present whatever; let your character in that respect be transparent and without the least speck, for as avarice is the vilest and dirtiest vice in private, corruption is so in public life.

I really think next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet which I should covet the most next to that of Aristides, would be that of well-bred.

It is by vivacity and wit that man shines in company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon.