Never write down your speeches beforehand; if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater.

Experience only can teach men not to prefer what strikes them for the present moment, to what will have much greater weight with the them hereafter.

It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all.

In the course of the world, a man must very often put on an easy, frank countenance, upon very disagreeable occasions; he must seem pleased, when he is very much otherwise; he must be able to accost and receive with smiles, those whom he would much rather meet with swords.

Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love; these are their universal characteristics.

Firmness of purpose is one of the best instruments of success.

I assisted at the birth of that most significant word "flirtation," which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world.