Wrongs are often forgiven; but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever.

It is commonly said that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humor, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.

A man who tells nothing, or who tells all, will equally have nothing told him.

A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion; it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.

Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.

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.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.