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One can be well-bred and write bad poetry.
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No matter what everybody says, ultimately these things can harm us only by the way we react to them.
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Betrayed and wronged in everything, I’ll flee this bitter world where vice is king, And seek some spot unpeopled and apart Where I’ll be free to have an honest heart.
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No one is safe from slander. The best way is to pay no attention to it, but live in innocence and let the world talk.
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All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing.
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She is laughing up her sleeve at you.
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How easy love makes fools of us.
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Don't appear so scholarly, pray. Humanize your talk, and speak to be understood.
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It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I'm right.
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The secret to fencing consists in two things: to give and to not receive.
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Great is the fortune of he who possesses a good bottle, a good book, and a good friend.
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You have but to hold forth in cap and gown, and any gibberish becomes learning, all nonsense passes for sense.
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People are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.
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Debts are nowadays like children begot with pleasure, but brought forth in pain.
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Men often marry in hasty recklessness and repent afterward all their lives.
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There is no praise to bear the sort that you put in your pocket.
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Cover that bosom that I must not see: souls are wounded by such things.
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The defects of human nature afford us opportunities of exercising our philosophy, the best employment of our virtues. If all men were righteous, all hearts true and frank and loyal, what use would our virtues be?
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Consistency is only suitable for ridicule.
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A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.
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People spend most of their lives worrying about things that never happen.
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Unbroken happiness is a bore: it should have ups and downs.
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I want people to be sincere; a man of honor shouldn't speak a single word that doesn't come straight from his heart.
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Everything that's prose isn't verse and everything that isn't verse is prose. Now you see what it is to be a scholar!