The fund of sensible discourse is limited; that of jest and badinerie is infinite.

Immoderate assurance is perfect licentiousness.

A wound in the friendship of young persons, as in the bark of young trees, may be so grown over as to leave no scar. The case is very different in regard to old persons and old timber. The reason of this may be accountable from the decline of the social passions, and the prevalence of spleen, suspicion, and rancor towards the latter part of life.

It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave.

It seems with wit and good-nature, Utrum horum mavis accipe. Taste and good-nature are universally connected.

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.

Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few.