He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.

If it were a rainy day, a drunken vigil, a fit of the spleen, a course of physic, sleepy Sunday, an ill run at dice, a long tailor's bill, a beggar's purse, a factious head, a hot sun, costive diet, want of books, and a just contempt for learning - but for these. . .the number of authors and of writing would dwindle away to a degree most woeful to behold.

And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning etc., beginning from his youth, and so go to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

Argument is the worst sort of conversation.

"Lawyers Are": Those whose interests and abilities lie in perverting, confounding and eluding the law.