Quality and title have such allurements that hundreds are ready to give up all their own importance, to cringe, to flatter, to look little, and to pall every pleasure in constraint, merely to be among the great, though without the least hopes of improving their understanding or sharing their generosity. They might be happier among their equals.

As for disappointing them I should not so much mind; but I can't abide to disappoint myself.

That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.

The malicious sneer is improperly called laughter.

A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.

An Englishman fears contempt more than death.

Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony is the most certain mode of bringing either into contempt.