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.

If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.

When a man is once in fashion, all he does is right.

The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.

It is by vivacity and wit that man shines in company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon.

Silence and reserve suggest latent power. What some men think has more effect than what others say.

Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in mixed company; it should only be treated among a very few people of learning, for mutual instruction. It is too awful and respectable a subject to become a familiar one.