Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection.

Conversation is the legs on which thought walks; and writing, the wings by which it flies.

The most certain mode of making people content with us is to make them content with themselves.

A German writer observes: "The noblest characters only show themselves in their real light. All others act comedy with their fellow-men even unto the grave.

There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to rise in the world.

Thoughts come maimed and plucked of plumage from the lips, which, from the pea, in the silence of your own leisure and study, would be born with far more beauty.

Wit lives in the present, but genius survives the future.