Never write down your speeches beforehand; if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater.

Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.

Our self-love is mortified, when we think our opinions, and even our tastes, customs, and dresses, either arraigned or condemned;as, on the contrary, it is tickled and flattered by approbation.

Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life; returns are equally expected for both.

Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it.

In friendship, as well as in love, the mind is often the dupe of the heart.

Enjoy pleasures, but let them be your own, and then you will taste them.