No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.

Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus, they enjoy the present-- which seldom happens to us.

Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.

We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.

A pious man is one who would be an athiest if the king were.

Modesty is to merit what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.

True greatness is free, kind, familiar, and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.

Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.

From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light.

A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position.