You must be respectable, if you will be respected.

Men have various subjects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel, and though they love to hear justice done to them where they know they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel and yet are doubtful whether they do or not.

When you have found out the prevailing passion of any man, remember never to trust him where that passion is concerned.

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.

Buy good books, and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads.

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

The manner of a vulgar man has freedom without ease, and the manner of a gentleman has ease without freedom.