Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library; for who can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue.

Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive .

Politeness is fictitious benevolence. Depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other.

men do not suspect faults which they do not commit

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

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