Take the tone of the company you are in...

There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest: but there is seldom one in which a man should tell it all.

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

Keep carefully not of all scrapes and quarrels. They lower a character extremely; and are particularly dangerous in France, wherea man is dishonoured by not resenting an affront, and utterly ruined by resenting it.

Words are the dress of thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and dirt than your person should.

To me it appears strange that the men against whom I should be enabled to bring an action for laying a little dirt at my door, may with impunity drive by it half-a-dozen calves, with their tails lopped close to their bodies and their hinder parts covered with blood.

The vulgar only laugh, but never smile; whereas well-bred people often smile, but seldom laugh.