Most people have ears, but few have judgment; tickle those ears, and depend upon it, you will catch their judgments, such as they are.

Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters.

Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you.... Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth; that is the least consideration; but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.

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.

Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.

Buy good books, and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads.

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