Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.

The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.

Remember, that when I speak of pleasures I always mean the elegant pleasures of a rational being, and not the brutal ones of a swine. I mean la bonne chère, short of gluttony; wine, infinitely short of drunkenness; play, without the least gaming; and gallantry, without debauchery.

All I desire for my own burial, is not to be buried alive; but how or where, I think, must be entirely indifferent to every rational creature.

Whenever I go to an opera, I leave my sense and reason at the door with my half-guinea, and deliver myself up to my eyes and my ears.

People will, in a great degree, and not without reason, form their opinion of you upon that which they have of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb which says vry justly, 'Tell me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are.'

I would rather have a young fellow too much than too little dressed; the excess on that side will wear off, with a little age and reflection; but if he is negligent at twenty, he will be a sloven at forty, and stink at fifty years old. Dress yourself fine where others are fine, and plain where others are plain; but take care always that your clothes are well made and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very awkward air.