The manner of a vulgar man has freedom without ease, and the manner of a gentleman has ease without freedom.

Men will not believe because they will not broaden their minds.

Men are much more unwilling to have their weaknesses and their imperfections known than their crimes.

The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of superior genius.

Few men are of one plain, decided color; most are mixed, shaded, and blended; and vary as much, from different situations, as changeable silks do from different lights.

Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the destroyers of it too; by frequently changing the hands in which they think proper to lodge it.

Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon; they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compassto direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their voyage.