Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.

In the ordinary course of things, how many succeed in society merely by virtue of their manners, while others, however meritorious, fail through lack of them? After all, it's only barbarians who wear uncut precious stones.

Remember that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the foundation of before you are eighteen, you will never be master of while you breathe.

Keep carefully not of all scrapes and quarrels. They lower a character extremely; and are particularly dangerous in France, wherea man is dishonoured by not resenting an affront, and utterly ruined by resenting it.

Nothing is more dissimilar than natural and acquired politeness. The first consists in a willing abnegation of self; the second in a compelled recollection of others.

Whoever plays deep must necessarily lose his money or his character.