Self-conceit is a weighty quality, and will sometimes bring down the scale when there is nothing else in it. It magnifies a fault beyond proportion, and swells every omission into an outrage.

Avoid all affectation and singularity. What is according to nature is best, and what is contrary to it is always distasteful. Nothing is graceful that is not our own.

Everyone has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases.

He that would relish success to a purpose should keep his passions cool, and his expectations low; and then it is possible that his fortune might exceed his fancy; for an advantage always rises by surprise; and is almost always doubled by being unlooked for.

Patient waiting is often the highest way of doing God's will.

Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance and make a seeming difficulty gives way.

Rhetoric is nothing but reason well dressed and argument put in order.