Friends are the thermometer by which we may judge the temperature of our fortunes.

There is no knowledge for which so great a price is paid as a knowledge of the world; and no one ever became an adept in it except at the expense of a hardened or a wounded heart.

The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for error; and those of the poor and lowly, for crimes.

Pleasure is like a cordial - a little of it is not injurious, but too much destroys.

To amend mankind, moralists should show them man, not as he is, but as he ought to be.

You were wise not to waste years in a lawsuit ... he who commences a suit resembles him who plants a palm-tree which he will not live to see flourish.

Grief is, of all the passions, the one that is the most ingenious and indefatigable in finding food for its own subsistence.