Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.

In all distresses of our friends We first consult our private ends; While Nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.

The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion.

Abstracts, abridgments, summaries, etc., have the same use with burning-glasses,--to collect the diffused light rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination.

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.

Silks, velvets, calicoes, and the whole lexicon of female fopperies.

Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character.