If poverty is the mother of all crimes, lack of intelligence is the father..

We confide our secret to a friend, but in love it escapes us..

A man must be completely wanting in intelligence if he does not show it when actuated by love, malice, or necessity..

A woman is easily governed, if a man takes her in hand..

When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it..

A man must have very eminent qualities to hold his own without being polite..

Manners carry the world for the moment, character for all time..

The events we most desire do not happen; or, if they do, it is neither in the time nor in the circumstances when they would have given us extreme ple….

There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech be….

The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself….

We need not envy certain people their great wealth; they acquired it at a heavy cost, which would not suit us; they staked their rest, their health, ….

It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing; if it is not covered with flowers, with fruit trees and grains, it produces briers and pines. ….

Criticism is as often a trade as a science, requiring, as it does, more health than wit, more labour than capacity, more practice than genius..

Foolish jokers are thick on the ground, and it rains insects of that sort everywhere. A good joker is a rarity; even a man who is such by nature find….

Physiognomy is not a guide that has been given us by which to judge of the character of men: it may only serve us for conjecture. [Fr., La physionomi….

We should laugh before being happy, for fear of dying without having laughed..

This great misfortune, to be incapable of solitude..

The most accomplished literary work would be reduced to nothing by carping criticism, if the author would listen to all critics and allow every one t….

Death happens but once, yet we feel it every moment of our lives; it is worse to dread it than to suffer it..

Eloquence is to the sublime what the whole is to the part..

If men wish to be held in esteem, they must associate with those only who are estimable..