A man is not obliged honestly to answer a question which should not properly be put.

To understand the works of celebrated authors, to comprehend their systems, and retain their reasonings, is a task more than equal to common intellects; and he is by no means to be accounted useless or idle, who has stored his mind with acquired knowledge, and can detail it occasionally to others who have less leisure or weaker abilities.

Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.

Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired.... Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion: commit yourself again to the current of the world.

A woman of fortune being used the handling of money, spends it judiciously; but a woman who gets the command of money for the first time upon her marriage, has such a gust in spending it, that she throws it away with great profusion.

He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted.

A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one.