Deserve a great deal, and you shall have a great deal; deserve little, and you shall have but a little; and be good for nothing atall, and I assure you, you shall have nothing at all.

A certain degree of fear produces the same effects as rashness.

Those whom you can make like themselves better will, I promise you, like you very well.

Study the heart and the mind of man, and begin with your own. Meditation and reflection must lay the foundation of that knowledge, but experience and practice must, and alone can, complete it.

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.

A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry.

I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.