We may daily discover crowds acquire sufficient wealth to buy gentility, but very few that possess the virtues which ennoble human nature, and (in the best sense of the word) constitute a gentleman.

Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.

Avarice is the most oppose of all characters to that of God Almighty, whose alone it is to give and not receive.

Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.

A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects.

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

A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attributes to mankind.