If you see one cold and vehement at the same time, set him down for a fanatic.

Take here the grand secret; if not of pleasing all, yet of displeasing none, and court mediocrity, avoid originality, and sacrifice to fashion.

An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no more than an entirely dishonest knave: the best and the worst are only approximations of those qualities. Who are those that never contradict themselves? yet honesty never contradicts itself: Who are those that always contradict themselves? yet knavery is mere self-contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things themselves, but their proportions, the quan∣tum of congruities and incongruities.

Malice is poisoned by her own venom.

Good-humor is always a success.

True worth is as inevitably discovered by the facial expression, as its opposite is sure to be clearly represented there. The human face is nature's tablet, the truth is certainly written thereon.

The greatest of characters, no doubt, would be he, who, free of all trifling accidental helps, could see objects through one grand immutable medium, always at hand, and proof against illusion and time, reflecting every object in its true shape and colour through all the fluctuation of things.