Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious traveller. . .who always proportions his stay in any place.

Human life very much resembles a game of chess: for, as in the latter, while a gamester is too attentive to secure himself very strongly on one side of the board, he is apt to leave an unguarded opening on the other, so doth it often happen in life.

Make money your god, and it will plague you like the devil.

The raillery which is consistent with good-breeding is a gentle animadversion of some foible, which, while it raises the laugh in the rest of the company, doth not put the person rallied out of countenance, or expose him to shame or contempt. On the contrary, the jest should be so delicate that the object of it should be capable of joining in the mirth it occasions.

Beauty may be the object of liking--great qualities of admiration--good ones of esteem--but love only is the object of love.

Nothing can be so quick and sudden as the operations of the mind, especially when hope, or fear, or jealousy, to which the other two are but journeymen, set it to work.

Money will say more in one moment than the most eloquent lover can in years.