We are as often duped by diffidence as by confidence.

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.

In your friendships and in your enmities let your confidence and your hostilities have certain bounds; make not the former dangerous, nor the latter irreconcilable. There are strange vicissitudes in business.

Nothing sharpens the arrow of sarcasm so keenly as the courtesy that polishes it; no reproach is like that we clothe with a smile and present with a bow.

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

Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.

A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share in another.