"Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting."

"As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold."

"A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than yesterday."

"The proper words in the proper places are the true definition of style."

"A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart."

"Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes."

"The want of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome."

"It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind."

"My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool."

"Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction."

"Better belly burst than good liquor be lost."

"Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly."

"Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions."

"Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room."

"Observation is an old man's memory."