Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but let them feel at the same time the steadiness of your just resentment for there is a great difference between bearing malice, which is always ungenerous, and a resolute self-defense which is ever prudent and justifiable.

So much are our minds influenced by the accidents of our bodies, that every man is more the man of the day than a regular and consequential character.

The only sure way of avoiding these evils [vanity and boasting] is never to speak of yourself at all. But when, historically, youare obliged to mention yourself, take care not to drop one single word that can directly or indirectly be construed as fishing for applause.

It seems to me that physical sickness softens, just as moral sickness hardens, the heart.

Since attaining the full use of my reason no one has ever heard me laugh.

There is hardly any place or any company where you may not gain knowledge, if you please; almost everybody knows some one thing, and is glad to talk about that one thing.

Mankind is made up of inconsistencies, and no man acts invariably up to his predominant character. The wisest man sometimes acts weakly, and the weakest sometimes wisely.