Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches.

The most reserved of men, that will not exchange two syllables together in an English coffee-house, should they meet at Ispahan, would drink sherbet and eat a mess of rice together.

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

Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use.

Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding than a church organ with devotion, or wine with good-nature.

Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.

I know not whether increasing years do not cause us to esteem fewer people and to bear with more.