Good breeding consists in having no particular mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners.

People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them.

Laws teach us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it.

You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do; but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.

Lectures were once useful; but now when all can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary.

I will venture to say there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit [in London], than in all the rest of the kingdom.

Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly cooperate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.