When we are in the company of sensible men, we ought to be doubly cautious of talking too much, lest we lose two good things, their good opinion and our own improvement; for what we have to say we know, but what they have to say we know not.

Sir Richard Steele has observed, that there is this difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England: the one professes to be infallible, the other to be never in the wrong.

Pity a thing often avowed, seldom felt; hatred is a thing often felt, seldom avowed.

Vanity finds in self-love so powerful an ally that it storms, as it were, by a coup de main,, the citadel of our heads, where, having blinded the two watchmen, it readily descends into the heart.

No propagation or multiplication is more rapid that that of evil, unless it be checked; no growth more certain.

Diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

He that can please nobody is not so much to be pitied as he that nobody can please.