I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.

The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.

The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it.

The expression of a gentleman's face is not so much that of refinement, as of flexibility, not of sensibility and enthusiasm as of indifference; it argues presence of mind rather than enlargement of ideas.

If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.

We prefer ourselves to others, only because we a have more intimate consciousness and confirmed opinion of our own claims and merits than of any other person's.

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.