I know not whether increasing years do not cause us to esteem fewer people and to bear with more.

There would not be any absolute necessity for reserve if the world were honest; yet even then it would prove expedient. For, in order to attain any degree of deference, it seems necessary that people should imagine you have more accomplishments than you discover.

Theirs is the present who can praise the past.

A court of heraldry sprung up to supply the place of crusade exploits, to grant imaginary shields and trophies to families that never wore real armor, and it is but of late that it has been discovered to have no real jurisdiction.

The love of popularity seems little else than the love of being beloved; and is only blamable when a person aims at the affections of a people by means in appearance honest, but in their end pernicious and destructive.

I am thankful that my name in obnoxious to no pun.

Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.