It is not enough that you can form nay, and follow, the most excellent rules for conducting yourself in the world. You must also know when to deviate from them, and where lies the exception.

I hardly know so true a mark of a little mind as the servile imitation of others.

Some characters are like some bodies in chemistry; very good, perhaps, in themselves, yet fly off and refuse the least conjunction with each other.

Our companions please us less from the charms we find in their conversation than from those they find in ours.

Those men who are commended by everybody must be very extraordinary men; or, which is more probable, very inconsiderable men.

Avarice starves its possessor to fatten those who come after, and who are eagerly awaiting the demise of the accumulator.

A proud man never shows his pride so much as when he is civil.