Business is so much lower a thing than learning that a man used to the last cannot easily bring his stomach down to the first.

Formality is sufficiently revenged upon the world for being so unreasonably laughed at; it is destroyed, it is true, but it hath the spiteful satisfaction of seeing everything destroyed with it.

Nothing would more contribute to make a man wise than to have always an enemy in his view.

There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill natured.

In our corrupted state, common weaknesses and defects contribute more towards the reconciling us to one another than all the precepts of the philosophers and divines.

Friendship cannot live with ceremony, nor without civility.

The Triumph of Wit is to make your good Nature subdue your Censure; to be quick in seeing Faults, and slow in exposing them. You are to consider, that the invisible thing called a Good Name, is made up of the Breath of Numbers that speak well of you; so that if by a disobliging Word you silence the meanest, the Gale will be less strong which is to bear up your Esteem.