Men are mad most of their lives; few live sane, fewer die so. The acts of people are baffling unless we realize that their wits are disordered. Man is driven to justice by his lunacy.

So much of our lives is given over to the consideration of our imperfections that there is no time to improve our imaginary virtues. The truth is we only perfect our vices, and man is a worse creature when he dies than he was when he was born.

Man hoards himself when he has nothing to give away.

We are uneasy with an affectionate man, for we are positive he wants something of us, particularly our love.

Perhaps Samuel Johnson was a great man; he was certainly a drumbling one.

I have no confidence in a man whose faults you cannot see.

A man who can be entertaining for a full day will be in his grave by night-fall.

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

Evil, which is our companion all our days, is not to be treated as a foe. It is wrong to cocker vice, but we grow narrow and pithless if we are furtive about it, for this is at best a pretense, and the sage knows good and evil are kindred. The worst of men harm others, and the best injure themselves.