In friendship, as well as in love, the mind is often the dupe of the heart.

The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy. Take common sense quantum sufficit; add a little application to the rules and orders of the House [of Commons], throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large quantity of purity, correctness and elegancy of style. Take it for granted that by far the greatest part of mankind neither analyze nor search to the bottom; they are incapable of penetrating deeper than the surface.

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.

Very ugly or very beautiful women should be flattered on their understanding, and mediocre ones on their beauty.

Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.

In friendship, as well as in love, the mind is often the dupe of the heart.

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