The most necessary disposition to relish pleasures is to know how to be without them.

The pleasures of the world are deceitful; they promise more than they give. They trouble us in seeking them, they do not satisfy us when possessing them, and they make us despair in losing them.

Temperance adds zest to pleasure.

We live with our defects as with the odors we carry about us: we do not perceive them, but they incommode those who approach us.

We like to know the weakness of eminent persons; it consoles us for our inferiority.

The first rule for speaking well is to think well.

Politeness costs little and yields much.

One of the duties of old-age, is the management of time. The less that remains to us, the more valuable we ought to consider it.

Would you be esteemed? Live with persons that are estimable.

Simplicity is oftenest an adroit pretence.

We can easily forgive want of means; but littleness, with means, is disgusting.

Husbands are always angry, that's their nature.And the nature of us women, is not to pay a blind bit of notice.

One cannot judge 'Lohengrin' from a first hearing and I certainly do not intend to hear it a second time.

There have been times of late when I have had to hold on to one text with all my might: "It is required in stewards that a man may be found faithful." Praise God, it does not say "sucessful.

You cannot amputate your history from your destiny, because that is redemption.

I wanted to see how fast you can go before it becomes nonsensical, a mess.

It is invidious to distinguish particular men as adventurers: we are all such.

Everything is still falling apart.

If we do not suffer a loss all the way to the end, it will wait for us. It won’t just dissipate and disappear. Rather, it will fester, and we will experience its sorrow later, in stranger forms.

Failing to differentiate among employees — and holding on to bottom-tier performers — is actually the cruelest form of management there is.

No one is more enslaved than a slave who doesn't think they're enslaved.