If you give alms from compassion, why require the beneficiary to be "a deserving object"? No other adversity is so sharp as destitution of merit.
Bereavement is the name that selfishness gives to a particular privation.
O proud philanthropist, your hope is vain
To get by giving what you lost by gain.
With every gift you do but swell the cloud
Of witnesses against you, swift and loud—
Accomplices who turn and swear you split
Your life: half robber and half hypocrite.
You're least unsafe when most intact you hold
Your curst allotment of dishonest gold.
The highest and rarest form of contentment is approval of the success of another.
If Inclination challenge, stand and fight—
From Opportunity the wise take flight.
What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.
Those who most loudly invite God's attention to themselves when in peril of death are those who should most fervently wish to escape his observation.
When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.
How fascinating is Antiquity!—in what a golden haze the ancients lived their lives! We, too, are ancients. Of our enchanting time Posterity's great poets will sing immortal songs, and its archæologists will reverently uncover the foundations of our palaces and temples. Meantime we swap jack-knives.
Observe, my son, with how austere a virtue the man without a cent puts aside the temptation to manipulate the market or acquire a monopoly.