79 quotes
Let dull critics feed upon the carcases of plays; give me the taste and the dressing.
Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in a mixed company.
A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard to laugh.
Women, then, are only children of a larger growth.
Never do but one thing at a time, and never put off till to-morrow what you can do today.
Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true wit or good sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world.
These poor mistaken people think they shine, and they do indeed, but it is as putrefaction shines, — in the dark.
Style is the dress of thoughts.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it to you.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Gold and silver are but merchandise, as well as cloth or linen; and that nation that buys the least, and sells the most, must always have the most money.
Dispatch is the soul of business.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. 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.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
The dews of the evening most carefully shun;
Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.
I foresee, that before the end of this century, the trade of both King and Priest will not be half so good a one as it has been.
Despatch is the soul of business.
Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will therefore always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in the pursuit of it.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)