Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.

Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone - but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.

Learning is its own exceeding great reward.

Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.

Confidence gives a fool the advantage over a wise man.

A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.