The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.

I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it. He does not beat about the bush for difficulties or excuses, but goes the shortest and most effectual way to work to attain his own ends, or to accomplish a useful object.

The look of a gentleman is little else than the reflection of the looks of the world.

Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.

It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.

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

The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it.