There may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in publick than want of resolution: he may have nothing to say.

I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian.

All discourse of which others cannot partake is not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted to pleasure and entertainment, but, what never fails to excite resentment, an insolent assertion of superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened understandings. The pedant is, therefore, not only heard with weariness but malignity; and those who conceive themselves insulted by his knowledge never fail to tell with acrimony how injudiciously it was exerted.

Though the discoveries or acquisitions of man are not always adequate to the expectations of his pride, they are at least sufficient to animate his industry.

I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful; for not only every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such a uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility of good or ill but is common to human kind.

The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendor cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate.

Prejudice is a great time-saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts. Prejudice not being founded on reason cannot be removed by argument.