Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.

The more merit, the less affection

The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.

Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.

Don’t take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.

A bad manner spoils everything, even reason and justice; a good one supplies everything, gilds a ‘No,’ sweetens truth, and adds a touch of beauty to old age itself.

Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art.

Say farewell to luck when winning. It is the way of the gamblers of reputation. Quite as important as a gallant advance is a well-planned retreat. Lock up your winnings when they are enough, or...

Folly consists not in committing Folly, but in being incapable of concealing it. All men make mistakes, but the wise conceal the blunders they have made, while fools make them public. Reputation depends more on...

Quit while you’re ahead. All the best gamblers do.

Truth always lags last, limping along on the arm of Time

Respect yourself if you would have others respect you.

At 20 a man is a peacock, at 30 a lion, at 40 a camel, at 50 a serpent, at 60 a dog, at 70 an ape, and at 80 nothing

Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone

One half the world laughs at the other, and fools are they all

Even knowledge has to be in the fashion, and where it is not, it is wise to affect ignorance.

To oblige persons often costs little and helps much.

Yes and No are soon said, but give much to think over

One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity.

One should cultivate good habits of memory, for it is capable of making existence a Paradise or an Inferno.

Hope is a great falsifier. Let good judgment keep her in check.

A weak spirit does more harm than a weak body.

Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.

It requires as much caution to tell the truth as to conceal it.

Sometimes it proves the highest understanding not to understand

He who finds Fortune on his side should go briskly ahead, for she is wont to favor the bold.

Nature often lets us down when we most need her; let us turn to art.

One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground

A beautiful woman should break her mirror early

Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.

A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.

He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other’s slave.

The greatest fool is he who thinks he is not one and all others are

It is good to vary in order that you may frustrate the curious, especially those who envy you.

The great art of giving consists in this the gift should cost very little and yet be greatly coveted, so that it may be the more highly appreciated.

Time and I against any two

It is a great art to know how to sell wind

Beauty and folly are generally companions.

The things we remember best are those better forgotten

Everything foreign is respected, partly because it comes from afar, partly because it is ready made and perfect

Fortune pays sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration

Knowledge without courage is sterile.

Do not carry a spirit of contradiction, for it is to be freighted with stupidity and with peevishness, and your intelligence should plot against it; though it may well be the mark of mental genius...

Begin with another’s to end with your own.

At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel, at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty a nothing at all.

Rivalry discovers that courtesy overlooks.

I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.

Mediocrity obtains more with application than superiority without it

The pillow is a silent Sibyl, and it is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards

Evil report carries further than any applause