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

Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you can;but never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will.

In order to judge of the inside of others, study your own; for men in general are very much alike; and though one has one prevailing passion, and another has another, yet their operations are much the same; and whatever engages or disgusts, pleases or offends you, in others, will, mutatis mutandis, engage, disgust, please, or offend others, in you.

Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than experience; which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken; for though spirit without experience is dangerous, experience without spirit is languid and ineffective.

I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.

A cheerful, easy, open countenance will make fools think you a good-natured man, and make designing men think you an undesigning one.

The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.