A wise traveler never despises his own country.

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

There is some virtue in almost every vice, except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is at the same time a compliment to it.

Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.

First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not unfrequently) to our cost when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or actions. A man's look is the work of years, it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.

Humour is the making others act or talk absurdly and unconsciously; wit is the pointing out and ridiculing that absurdity consciously, and with more or less ill-nature.

The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life.