Gratitude is one of those things that cannot be bought. It must be born with men, or else all the obligations in the world will not create it.

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.

A man that should call everything by its right name would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy.

The plainer the dress, the greater luster does beauty appear.

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

A man that steps aside from the world and has leisure to observe it without interest and design, thinks all mankind as mad as they think him.

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.