Fear invites danger; concealed cowards insult known ones.

The heart has such an influence over the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest.

In business be as able as you can, but do not be cunning; cunning is the dark sanctuary of incapacity.

To take a wife merely as an agreeable and rational companion, will commonly be found to be a grand mistake.

The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.

Instead of giving in to the greatest misfortune that can happen at my age, deafness, I busy myself in searching out all possible compensations, and I apply myself much more to all the amusements that are here within my grasp.

I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country [England], that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.