Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.
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No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.
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There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!
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The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.
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Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.
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That man is good who does good to others if he suffers on account of the good he does, he is very good if he suffers at the hands of those to whom he has done good, then his goodness is so great that it could be enhanced only by greater sufferings and if he should die at their hands, his virtue can go no further it is heroic, it is perfect.
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Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life.
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There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.
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Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.
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You may drive a dog off the King's armchair, and it will climb into the preacher's pulpit; he views the world unmoved, unembarrassed, unabashed.
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The court is like a palace of marble; it's composed of people very hard and very polished.
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We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.
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Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed.
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It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.
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The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as can help in making his fortune.
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We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.
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Lofty posts make great men greater still, and small men much smaller.
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There are only three events in a man's life birth, life, and death he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.
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Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.
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There are only two ways by which to rise in this world, either by one's own industry or by the stupidity of others.
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The wise person often shuns society for fear of being bored.
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Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.
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The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.
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A pious man is one who would be an athiest if the king were.
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Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present - which seldom happens to us.
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Don't wait to be happy to laugh... You may die and never have laughed
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Nothing more clearly show how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other wordly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.
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All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
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One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.
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When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.
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