I would have all intoleration intolerated in its turn.

A foreign minister, I will maintain it, can never be a good man of business if he is not an agreeable man of pleasure too. Half his business is done by the help of his pleasures: his views are carried on, and perhaps best, and most unsuspectedly, at balls, suppers, assemblies, and parties of pleasure; by intrigues with women, and connections insensibly formed with men, at those unguarded hours of amusement.

If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?

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.

Real friendship is a slow grower.

Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

I love every-day senses, every-day wit and entertainment; a man who is only good on holidays, is good for very little.