When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.

That there is something in advice very useful and salutary, seems to be equally confessed on all hands; since even those that reject it, allow for the most part that rejection to be wrong, but charge the fault upon the unskilful manner in which it is given; they admit the efficacy of the medicine, but abhor the nauseousness of the vehicle.

I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.

Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.

But, perhaps, the flatterer is not often detected; for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when selflove favors the deceit.