Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you.

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.

Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

A seeming ignorance is very often a most necessary part of worldly knowledge. It is, for instance, commonly advisable to seem ignorant of what people offer to tell you; and when they say, Have not you heard of such a thing? to answer No, and to let them go on, though you know it already.

Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.

I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.

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