Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you.... Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth; that is the least consideration; but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.

Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are.

Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.

If originally it was not good for a man to be alone, it is much worse for a sick man to be so; he thinks too much of his distemper, and magnifies it.

Cottages have them (falsehood and dissimulation) as well as courts, only with worse manners.

If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.

Business by no means forbids pleasures; on the contrary, they reciprocally season each other; and I will venture to affirm, that no man enjoys either in perfection that does not join both.