We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous; we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it.

Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they are qualified for nothing else.

Those who can command themselves command others.

The corpse of friendship is not worth embalming.

Liberty is the only true riches: of all the rest we are at once the masters and the slaves.

Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs.

Books wind into the heart.