Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than "your humble servant," at the bottom of a challengeis; they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.

Wear your knowledge like your watch - in you pocket - and don't pull it out just for show.

No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.

A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.

There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of lying, which they reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so; for it hurtsnobody but themselves. This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity, begotten upon folly.

To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe a great part of the figure which I have made in life.

Two people cannot be alone together for upwards of half an hour without one emerging as the superior.