The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary; but surely it is of great use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveler.

Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.

The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it.

The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.

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.

Style is the dress of thoughts, and let them be ever so just.

To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe a great part of the figure which I have made in life.