Our prejudices are our mistresses; reason is at best our wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded.

To please people is a great step towards persuading them.

There is not a more prudent maxim, than to live with one's enemies as if they may one day become one's friends; as it commonly happens, sooner or later, in the vicissitudes of political affairs.

Either a good or a bad reputation outruns and gets before people wherever they go.

Deafness produces bizarre effects, reversing the natural order of things; the interchange of letters is the conversation of the deaf, and the only link with society. I would be in despair, for instance, over seeing you speak, but, instead, I am only too happy to hear you write.

You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp itsseat, and rule in its stead.

To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.