Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners; without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.

Great abilities, when employed as God directs, do but make the owners of them greater and more painful servants to their neighbors.

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long continuance as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.

To acknowledge you were wrong yesterday is simply to let the world know that you are wiser today than you were then.

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

All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.