“Imitation is the highest form of flattery.”

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

That is fine benevolence, finely executed, which, like the Nile, comes from hidden sources.

That is true beauty which has not only a substance, but a spirit; a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate.

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

Some persons will tell you, with an air of the miraculous, that they recovered although they were given over; whereas they might with more reason have said, they recovered because they were given over.

There are three kinds of praise, that which we yield, that which we lend, and that which we pay. We yield it to the powerful from fear, we lend it to the weak from interest, and we pay it to the deserving from gratitude.

The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.

Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.

Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.

There are both dull correctness and piquant carelessness; it is needless to say which will command the most readers and have the most influence.

He that is gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion, will not feel himself quite secure, until he has also drawn his teeth.

As that gallant can best affect a pretended passion for one woman who has no true love for another, so he that has no real esteem for any of the virtues can best assume the appearance of them all.

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.

He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.

Our minds are as different as our faces. We are all traveling to one destination: happiness, but few are going by the same road.

Fearing no insult, asking for no crown, receive with indifference both flattery and slander, and do not argue with a fool.

Flatterers are the worst kind of enemies. [Lat., Pessimum genus inimicorum laudantes.]

Flattery labors under the odious charge of servility.

I am flattered that they think that many people would enjoy my work. I don’t approach any genre a different way than I may approach another one. I treat every role I do like a role worthy of applying whatever kind of tactic, process and talent I have.

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.

The fact that people are actually shaving their eyebrows is very flattering. But it’s crazy that people are singing songs I wrote in my bedroom.

There is scarcely any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the meanest manner to flatter himself.

Flattery will get you everywhere.