Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.

Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you can;but never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will.

Gratitude is a burden upon our imperfect nature.

If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.

Spirit is now a very fashionable word: to act with Spirit, to speak with Spirit, means only to act rashly, and to talk indiscreetly. An able man shows his Spirit by gentle words and resolute actions; he is neither hot nor timid.

There is hardly anybody good for everything, and there is scarcely anybody who is absolutely good for nothing.

Wrongs are often forgiven; but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever.