I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself what- ever he pleases, except a great poet.

Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.

Second-rate knowledge, and middling talents, carry a man farther at courts, and in the busy part of the world, than superior knowledge and shining parts.

A joker is near akin to a buffoon; and neither of them is the least related to wit.

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

A young fellow ought to be wiser than he should seem to be; and an old fellow ought to seem wise whether he really be so or not.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.