The most phlegmatic dispositions often contain the most inflammable spirits, as fire is struck from the hardest flints.

A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dulness by the side of folly looks like wisdom.

Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it.

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.

There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.

Habit in most cases hardens and encrusts by taking away the keener edge of our sensations: but does it not in others quicken and refine, by giving a mechanical facility and by engrafting an acquired sense?