Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.

Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others!

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.

There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love.

To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.

Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone - but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits.

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

Grace in women has more effect than beauty.

The more we do, the more we can do.

He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.

Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.

A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.

The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.

Zeal will do more than knowledge.

A wise traveler never despises his own country.

It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.

You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.

Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.

If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.

A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.

The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors.

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.

A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much.