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

Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.

The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of superior genius.

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.

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.

In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.

Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.