In order to judge of the inside of others, study your own; for men in general are very much alike; and though one has one prevailing passion, and another has another, yet their operations are much the same; and whatever engages or disgusts, pleases or offends you, in others, will, mutatis mutandis, engage, disgust, please, or offend others, in you.

All I can say, in answer to this kind queries [of friends] is that I have not the distemper called the Plague; but that I have allthe plagues of old age, and of a shattered carcase.

The French manner of hunting is gentlemanlike; ours is only for bumpkins and bodies. The poor beasts here are pursued and run downby much greater beasts than themselves; and the true British fox-hunter is most undoubtedly a species appropriated and peculiar to this country, which no other part of the globe produces.

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.

Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.

I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.

The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.