"Good humour is the only shield to keep off the darts of the satirical railer: if you have a quiver well stored, and are sure of hitting him between the joints of the harness, do not spare him; but you had better not bend your bow than miss your aim."

"There is an affected humility more unsufferable than downright pride, as hypocrisy is more abominable than libertimsm. Take care that your virtues be genuine and unsophisticated."

"Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago."

"In disputes upon moral or scientific points, ever let your aim be to come at truth, not to conquer your opponent: so you never shall be at a loss in losing the argument, and gaining a new discovery."

"If you want to gain any man's good opinion, take particular care how you behave the first time you are in company with him; the light you appear in at first, to one who is neither inclinable to think well nor ill of you, will strongly prejudice him either for or against you."

"Deep learning will make you acceptable to the learned; but it is only an obliging and easy behaviour, and entertaining conversation, that will make you agreeable to all companies."

"Men repent speaking ten times, for once that they repent keeping silence. It is an advantage to have concealed one's opinion; for by that means you may change your judgment of things (which every wise man fmds reason to do) and not be accused of fickleness."

"There is hardly any bodily blemish which a winning behaviour will not conceal, or make tolerable; and there is no external grace which ill-nature or affectation will not deform."

"Learning is like bank-notes: prudence and good behaviour are like silver, useful upon all occasions."

"What may be very entertaining in company with ignorant people may be tiresome to those who know more of the matter."

"Too much company is worse than none."

"If you mean to make your side of the argument appear plausible, do not prejudice the people against what you think truth by your passionate manner of defending it."

"Value truth, however you come by it. Who would not pick up a jewel that lay on a dunghill?"

"The beauty of behaviour consists in the manner more than the matter of your discourse."

"There is no occasion to trample upon the meanest reptile, nor to sneak to the greatest prince. Insolence and baseness are equally unmanly."

"Make your company a rarity, and people will value it. Men despise what they can easily have."

"Never fish for praise; it is not worth the bait."

"Do well, but do not boast of it; for that will lessen the commendation you might otherwise have deserved."

"To offer advice to an angry man, is like blowing against a tempest."

"Do not sit dumb in company; it will be ascribed either to pride, cunning, or stupidity: give your opinion modestly, but freely; hear that of others with candour; and ever endeavour to find out, and to communicate truth."

"Be careful of your word, even in keeping the most trifling appointment. But do not blame another for a failure of that kind till you have heard his excuse."

"Never offer advice but where there is some probability of its being followed."

"If a great person has omitted rewarding your services, do not talk of it; perhaps he may not yet have had an opportunity, for they have always on hand expectants innumerable, and the clamorous are too generally gratified before the deserving; besides, it is the way to draw his displeasure upon you, which can do you no good, but make bad worse. If the services you did were voluntary, you ought not to expect any return, because you made a present of them unasked; and a free gift is not to be turned into a loan, to draw the person you have served into debt. If you have served a great person merely with a view to self-interest, perhaps he is aware of that, and rewards you accordingly: nor can you justly complain: he owes you nothing; it was not him you meant to serve."

"Nothing is more unmannerly than to reflect on any man's profession, sect, or natural infirmity. He who stirs up against himself another's self-love, provokes the strongest passion in human nature."

"Love your fellow creature, though vicious. Hate vice in the friend you love the most."

"If you have seen a man misbehave once, do not from thence conclude him a fool; if you find he has been in a mistake in one particular, do not at once conclude him void of understanding : by that way of judging, you can entertain a favourable opinion of no man upon earth, nor even of yourself."

"Reproof is a medicine like mercury or opium; if it be improperly administered it will do harm instead of good."

"Fools pretend to foretell what will be the issue of things, and are laughed at for their awkward conjectures. Wise men being aware of the uncertainty of human aflairs, and having observed how small a matter often produces a great change, are modest in their conjectures."

"Praise your friends, and let your friends praise you."

"If you give a jest, take one. Let all your jokes be truly jokes. Jesting sometimes ends in sad earnest."

"If a favour is asked of you, grant it if you can. If not, refuse it in such a manner as that one denial may be sufficient."

"Insult not another for his want of a talent you possess: He may have others which you want."

"He who knows the world will not be too bashful. He who knows himself will not be impudent."

"Do not endeavour to shine in all companies. Leave room for your hearers to imagine something within you beyond all you have said. And remember, the more you are praised, the more you will be envied."

"You need not tell all the truth, unless to those who have a right to know it all. But let all you tell be truth."

"Wit without humanity degenerates into bitterness. Learning without prudence into pedantry."

"In mixed company, be readier to hear than to speak, and put people upon talking of what is in their own way; for then you will both oblige them, and be most likely to improve by their conversation."

"In the midst of mirth, reflect that many of your fellow creatures round the world are expiring; and that your turn will come shortly. So will you keep your life uniform and free from excess."

"What to an outsider will be no more than the vigorous presentation of a conviction, to an employee may be the manifestation of a determination which it is not safe to thwart."

"There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally. [...] As nearly as we can, we must put ourselves in the place of those who uttered the words, and try to divine how they would have dealt with the unforeseen situation; and, although their words are by far the most decisive evidence of what they would have done, they are by no means final."

"If the prosecution of crime is to be conducted with so little regard for that protection which centuries of English law have given to the individual, we are indeed at the dawn of a new era; and much that we have deemed vital to our liberties, is a delusion."

"Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes."

"Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant."

"I had rather take my chance that some traitors will escape detection than spread abroad a spirit of general suspicion and distrust, which accepts rumor and gossip in place of undismayed and unintimidated inquiry."

"That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where nonconformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose."

"The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion."

"This is the most miserable of cases, but we must dispose of it as though it had been presented by actual lawyers."

"The judge's authority depends upon the assumption that he speaks with the mouth of others. That is to say, the momentum of his utterances must be greater than any which his personal reputation and character can command, if it is to do the work assigned to it — if it is to stand against the passionate resentments arising out of the interests he must frustrate — for while a judge must discover some composition with the dominant trends of his times, he must preserve his authority by cloaking himself in the majesty of an overshadowing past."