Letters, Sentences, and Maxims

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Page 148 - Talk often, but never long ; in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company, — this being one of the very few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay.
Page 107 - Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket : and do not pull it out and strike it ; merely to show that you have one.
Page 264 - Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money.
Page 146 - People will, in a great degree, and not without reason, form their opinion of you upon that which they have of your friends ; and there is a Spanish proverb, which says very justly, Tell me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are.
Page 277 - I do not love thee, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this I know, and know full well, I do not love thee. Dr. Fell.
Page 221 - And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners, and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to me to be less difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine.
Page 243 - Hampden, that he had a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute, any mischief.
Page 234 - Style is the dress of thoughts ; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received as your person, though ever so well proportioned, would, if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters. It is not every understanding that can judge of matter...
Page 108 - True wit, or sense, never yet made anybody laugh; they are above it: they please the mind, and give a cheerfulness to the countenance. But it is low buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always excite laughter; and that is what people of sense and breeding should show themselves above.
Page 27 - Human nature is the same all over the world ; but its operations are so varied by education and habit, that one must see it in all its dresses, in order to be intimately acquainted with it.

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