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

A foreign minister, I will maintain it, can never be a good man of business if he is not an agreeable man of pleasure too. Half his business is done by the help of his pleasures: his views are carried on, and perhaps best, and most unsuspectedly, at balls, suppers, assemblies, and parties of pleasure; by intrigues with women, and connections insensibly formed with men, at those unguarded hours of amusement.

I wish... that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it.

Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings.

Artichoke: That vegetable of which one has more at the finish than at the start of dinner.

I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country [England], that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.

Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.