A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.

Nothing is easier for passion than to overcome reason, but the greatest triumph is to conquer a man's own interests.

A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought.

A man who knows how to make good bargains or finds his money increase in his coffers, thinks presently that he has a good deal of brains and is almost fit to be a statesman.

Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity.

It is often easier as well as more advantageous to conform to other men's opinions than to bring them over to ours.

The pleasure a man of honor enjoys in the consciousness of having performed his duty is a reward he pays himself for all his pains.

A man is thirty years old before he has any settled thoughts of his fortune; it is not completed before fifty. He falls to building in his old age, and dies by the time his house is in a condition to be painted and glazed.

As favor and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before.