Why, this hath not a finger's dignity.
Good-breeding carries along with it a dignity that is respected by the most petulant. Ill-breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid.
Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
Few people do business well who do nothing else
At any age we must cherish illusions, consolatory or merely pleasant; in youth, they are omnipresent; in old age we must search for them, or even invent them. But with all that, boredom is their natural and inevitable accompaniment.
Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.
As kings are begotten and born like other men, it is to be presumed that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they thesame education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so that they seem to be a species by themselves. . . . Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their infancy, like old drinkers, they require dreams.
Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.
The conduct of a wise politician is ever suited to the present posture of affairs. Often by foregoing a part he saves the whole, and by yielding in a small matter secures a greater.
We must agree to live in this world, with all that is unfair about it, without knowing why, if we wish to have a God in our lives.
O God, make the bad people good, and the good people nice