Knowledge of the world depends on the power of drawing general inferences from individual examples; and he is the most likely to be correct who has the greatest number of facts at his command.

Love is a moral drunkenness; and, whilst it lasts, the shrew seems gentle, the tigress a dove, the flirt constant, and the fiend an angel.

Mediocrity bears but one flower--ENVY.

Any man can become rich who is base enough to keep a brothel, a gin palace, or a gambling house.

Cunning is seeing a hundred yards ahead--wisdom, fifty miles in advance.

Never enter into an argument with a lawyer, for, of necessity, it is time lost; not that lawyers are fools--far from it--but that their intellects are concentrated in the endeavour to make sophistries pass for truths.

Society ... should be viewed only as a titled harlot, elegant and fascinating as a Circe, but false and treacherous as a serpent; agreeable enough to pass an idle hour with, but fatal the moment we give it credit for sincerity, and seek a closer intimacy.

Madness is an excited mind, indulging in the dreams of imagination, until the heated fancy makes chimeras appear real.

If you would revenge yourself on those who have slighted you, BE SUCCESSFUL; it is a bitter satire on their want of judgment; to show that you can do without them, a galling wound to the self-love of proud, inflated people; but you must reckon on their hatred, as they will never forgive you.

Tact is the oil which lubricates society and prevents its harsh and heterogeneous particles from grating against each other; and in proportion as a person possesses this valuable emollient, so will he go roughly or smoothly through the world.

There is nothing in the world so easy as giving an opinion; consequently, in general, there are few things so utterly valueless.

Satire is a prompt recipe for making bitter enemies.

Life is often wasted in a search after unattainable advantages, and generally, through the scruples of pride and vanity, our happiness is delayed from day to day, by a rejection of those pleasures and benefits which are within our reach.

The most trying misfortune that can befall a man, is to be domesticated with a bad-tempered woman.

Never trust a man whom you know to have acted like a scoundrel to others, whatever friendliness he may profess to feel towards yourself, however plausible he may be, or however kindly he may behave; be sure that, the moment he has anything to gain by so doing, he will "throw you over."

Never forgive an injury or an insult so long as the offending parties have it in their power to make reparation; since, if they are able to do so, and will not, whatever they may pretend to others, they, up to that time, are only laughing at you, and triumphing in secret. If, however, they have not the power to neutralize an impertinence by explanation, or a fraud by restitution, forgive and forget either--as soon as you can.

Look less at an opinion given, than at the character of him who pronounces it. Incalculable mischief is often done by people unreflectingly receiving as "authority" the opinions of a mere ass, on subjects with which they are imperfectly acquainted, but on which he is supposed to be better informed, yet which are often the farthest from the truth, the judgment of such a person being either swayed by the most absurd prejudices, or blinded by the most ineffable conceit.

A wit in the society of stupid people is like a damp lucifer match, the brilliant properties of which are, for the time, neutralized by the unignitable qualities of the atmosphere in which it has been misplaced.

The wheel of Fortune, like that of a ship, is full of spokes, and sometimes flies so sharply round as to crush those who have become puffed up with her favours, so that they burst at the first tap; whilst such as are nourished, instead of bloated, by the stream of prosperity, escape by slipping between the spokes until the pressure has passed, their moderation providing their safeguard.

A lover is often most unjustly ridiculed for investing the woman for whom he has a passion, with qualities and feelings that she may not in reality possess; but in this, as in most cases, the world delights to judge unkindly; for it ought not to be overlooked that he is merely clothing the idol of his affections with his own beautiful conceptions of what she should be--transferring to her a superiority of sentiment which, in fact, belongs to himself, since it must have existed in his own mind before it could have been brought forward to adorn that of another. The pleasures of the world are all in imagination, else what a curse would existence be!

Those who flourish by ministering to the meanest feelings of their superiors in wealth and position, may be compared to worms in the human body, which thrive by feeding on the feces of their patrons.

A life of deceit is one of unmitigated torture--a living hell, which should deserve our pity for the unhappy beings who submit to it. It is surprising to what shifts and excuses those who lead so slippery a course are driven, in the vain hope to hoodwink the shrewd, with the painful necessity of laughing off exposures too glaring to be concealed--yet, when all is done, but to place themselves in the position of the stag which, thrusting its head into a thicket, believed itself to be unseen. In fact, there is very little hidden from society; and, as people of the world are generally willing to overlook much, the greater part of this maneuvering, with its attendant misery, might be spared.

Sincerity is a high quality, but its virtues are only efficacious when discreetly applied. Human beings, at the best, are but bundles of prejudices and humours, which it will not do to cut through too abruptly, lest the ties which bind them to ourselves be also severed, and the friendship of years fall to pieces in a day. The prudent surgeon, at the same time that he exerts his skill to excise, is careful not to lacerate, lest the patient die of mortification. In order to be sincere, it is not necessary to say the whole of what we think: enough that we do not, for the sake of being agreeable, say that which we feel to be untrue. In our most intimate friends there are numerous failings which we have no right to point out, manifold weaknesses we must not make weaker by tearing; and although we are wise to look as deeply into a well as our perceptions will allow us, there may be a thousand little truths at the bottom which it would be cruel to fish up.

Nothing is so unpalatable to arrogant people as to meet with scorn where they expected an unqualified admission of superiority.

Love renders the proud humble, and tames the fierce; it is at once the most and the least selfish of all passions; for, whilst it would engross the being on whom it is lavished, it will make any sacrifice, or undergo any privation, to insure the comfort of her it would possess.

If you are truly wise, you will conceal your knowledge from the world, and let every fool think himself your superior, especially if you have anything to gain by him; for envy is the strongest passion of the weak, and mediocrity is the hot-bed on which all the meaner passions flourish.

A wise and honest man looks to broad facts, and forms his judgment from them; a rogue endeavours to lead your attention off the true scent, away to details, that he may puzzle and confound you with minutiae always difficult to detect, and sometimes impossible to deny, but which, nevertheless, are nothing more than stakes laid in your path to trip you up, that he may plunder you at his convenience. If, therefore, the broad facts appear suspicious, doubt, but if details be brought to aid them, be sure, that you are in the high road to be deceived.

Insults unneutralized by apology, only sink deeper with time, and magnify with remoteness, until the rupture that, at first, a word might have united, becomes, by time alone, a breach too wide to be healed.