Silence and reserve suggest latent power. What some men think has more effect than what others say.

We are hardly ever grateful for a fine clock or watch when it goes right, and we pay attention to it only when it falters, for then we are caught by surprise. It ought to be the other way about.

It may be objected, that I am now recommending dissimulation to you; I both own and justify it. It has been long said: Qui nescitdissimular nescit regnare: I go still farther, and say, that without some dissimulation, no business can be carried on at all.

The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.

Few men are of one plain, decided color; most are mixed, shaded, and blended; and vary as much, from different situations, as changeable silks do from different lights.

I often wish for the end of the wretched remnant of my life; and that wish is a rational one; but then the innate principle of self-preservation, wisely implanted in our natures, for obvious purposes, opposes that wish, and makes us endeavour to spin out our thread as long as we can, however decayed and rotten it may be.

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.