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.

It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.

Two women seldom grow intimate but at the expense of a third person.

Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.

Old sciences are unraveled like old stockings, by beginning at the foot.

Argument is the worst sort of conversation.

When a man of genius appears in the world, it is immediately recognized by the fact that all the blockheads join forces against him.