Real merit of any kind cannot long be concealed; it will be discovered, and nothing can depreciate it but a man exhibiting it himself. It may not always be rewarded as it ought; but it will always be known.

A man who owes a little can clear it off in a very little time, and, if he is a prudent man, will; whereas a man, who by long negligence, owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay, and therefore never looks into his accounts at all.

Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.

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

The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of superior genius.

A learned parson, rusting in his cell at Oxford or Cambridge, will reason admirably well upon the nature of man; will profoundly analyze the head, the heart, the reason, the will, the passions, the senses, the sentiments, and all those subdivisions of we know not what ; and yet, unfortunately, he knows nothing of man... He views man as he does colours in Sir Isaac Newton's prism, where only the capital ones are seen; but an experienced dyer knows all their various shades and gradations, together with the result of their several mixtures.

Singularity is only pardonable in old age and retirement; I may now be as singular as I please, but you may not.