Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason.
Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health.
Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.
The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment.
Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.
I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive.
Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
Being pretty on the inside means you don't hit your brother and you eat all your peas - that's what my grandma taught me.
To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.
Good breeding is the result of good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others.
If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.
Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are.
In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.
As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.
Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.
Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.
Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.
It is always right to detect a fraud, and to perceive a folly; but it is very often wrong to expose either. A man of business should always have his eyes open, but must often seem to have them shut.
