The foolish acts of others ought to serve more as a lesson to us than an occasion to laugh at those who commit them.

It is an admirable skill to able to sweeten a refusal with civil words which atone for the favor which we are not able to grant.

All the great amusements are dangerous for the Christian life.

The maxims of Christian life, which should draw upon the truths of the Gospel, are always partially symbolic of the mind and temperament of those who teach them to us. The former, by their natural sweetness, show us the quality of God's mercy; the latter, by their harshness, show us God's justice.

Sometimes we praise the way things used to be in order to blame the present, and we esteem what is no longer in order to scorn what is.

The conversation of those who like to lord it over us is very disagreeable. But we should always be ready to graciously acknowledge the truth, no matter in what guise it comes to us.

There are many people who are so inclined to say "no" that the "no" always precedes whatever we say to them. This negative quality makes them so disagreeable that, even if they do what we want them to or agree with what we say, they always lose the pleasure that they might have received had they not started off so badly.