Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or self esteem from swelling into insolence. A thousand incivilities may be committed, and a thousand offices neglected. without any remorse of conscience, or reproach from reason.

Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate inquiry whether it is right.

Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.

I do not much wish well to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and robbery.

men do not suspect faults which they do not commit

Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.

To do something is in every man's power.