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

Life isn’t like a book. Life isn’t logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.

If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.

We should not be too niggardly in our praise, for men will do more to support a character than to raise one.

Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates and destroys.

Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.

Honor is the most capricious in her rewards. She feeds us with air, and often pulls down our house, to build our monument.

Be real and adjust you strategy according to honest results.

It is with nations as with individuals, those who know the least of others think the highest of themselves; for the whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other.

Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.

As the gout seems privileged to attack the bodies of the wealthy, so ennui seems to exert a similar prerogative over their minds.

Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.

It is best, if possible, to deceive no one; for he that begins by deceiving others, will end by deceiving himself.

There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.

A man’s profundity may keep him from opening on a first interview, and his caution on a second; but I should suspect his emptiness, if he carried on his reserve to a third.