The New Year is the season in which custom seems more particularly to authorize civil and harmless lies, under the name of compliments. People reciprocally profess wishes which they seldom form and concern which they seldom feel.

A man of the best parts and greatest learning, if he does not know the world by his own experience and observation, will be very absurd, and consequently very unwelcome in company. He may say very good things; but they will be probably so ill-timed, misplaced, or improperly addressed, that he had much better hold his tongue.

Experience only can teach men not to prefer what strikes them for the present moment, to what will have much greater weight with the them hereafter.

Whoever plays deep must necessarily lose his money or his character.

Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one.

Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true Wit or good Sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore often seen to smile, but never heard to laugh.

I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself what- ever he pleases, except a great poet.