Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.

Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it.

Many people come into company full of what they intend to say in it themselves, without the least regard to others; and thus charged up to the muzzle are resolved to let it off at any rate.

Fear invites danger; concealed cowards insult known ones.

The insolent civility of a proud man is, if possible, more shocking than his rudeness could be; because he shows you, by his manner, that he thinks it mere condescension in him; and that his goodness alone bestows upon you what you have no pretense to claim.

He makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves.

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.