Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.

Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.

Smooth your way to the head through the heart. The way of reason is a good one: but it is commonly something longer, and perhapsnot so sure.

Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in mixed company; it should only be treated among a very few people of learning, for mutual instruction. It is too awful and respectable a subject to become a familiar one.

Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one.

It is often more necessary to conceal contempt than resentment; the former is never forgiven, but the later is sometimes forgotten.

Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners.