Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is.

A wise man will live as much within his wit as his income.... Bear this truth always in your mind, that you may be admired for your wit, if you have any; but that nothing but good sense and good qualities can make you be loved.

Cautiously avoid speaking of the domestic affairs either of yourself, or of other people. Yours are nothing to them but tedious gossip; and theirs are nothing to you.

It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all.

Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the persons to whom we send them just what we should say to the persons if we were with them.

A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.

We are as often duped by diffidence as by confidence.