"Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends."

"Women are only children of a larger growth. A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters."

"Gratitude is a burden upon our imperfect nature, and we are but too willing to ease ourselves of it, or at least to lighten it as much as we can."

"There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time."

"Words, which are the dress of thoughts, deserve surely more care than clothes, which are only the dress of the person."

"A young man, be his merit what it will, can never raise himself; but must, like the ivy round the oak, twine himself round some man of great power and interest."

"It is always right to detect a fraud, and to perceive a folly; but it is very often wrong to expose either. A man of business should always have his eyes open, but must often seem to have them shut."

"In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable."

"Politeness is as much concerned in answering letters within a reasonable time, as it is in returning a bow, immediately."

"Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is."

"Whoever incites anger has a strong insurance against indifference."