Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.

Too much nicety of detail disgusts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is to common understandings of little use.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony

He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.

Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

Language is the dress of thought; every time you talk your mind is on parade.