Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms; and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.

It is to be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness.

The public pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit.

Every man has frequent grievances which only the solicitude of friendship will discover and remedy, and which would remain for ever unheeded in the mighty heap of human calamity, were it only surveyed by the eye of general benevolence equally attentive to every misery.

Bias and impartiality is in the eye of the beholder.

To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.

This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among Lords.