King James I. used to say, Nay, by my soul, that is too hard.”

Pride and roughness may turn one's humour, but flattery turns one's stomach.

Both extremes to be avoided: if we must lean one way, better to bluntness and coldness, which is most natural, than to flattery, which is artificial.

This is learned in the slavery of courts, or ill fortune; the other in the freedom of the country, and a fortune one is content with.

Nothing so nauseous as undistinguished civility: it is like a whore, or an hostess, who looks kindly upon every body that comes in.

It is fit only for such persons of quality as have no other way to draw company, and draws only such as are not welcome any where else.

Court conversation, without love or business, of all the other the most tasteless.

A court properly a fair; the end of it trade and gain for none would come to be jostled in a crowd, that is easy at home; nor go to service, that thinks he has enough to live well of himself.

Those that come to either for entertainment, are the dupes of the traders, or, at least, the raillery.

All the skill of a court is to follow the prince's present humour, talk the present language, serve the present turn, and make use of the present interest of one's friends.

Bluntness and plainness in a court, the most refined breeding.

Like something in a dress that looks neglected, and yet is very exact.

When I consider how many noble and esteemable

men, how many lovely and agreeable women, I have outlived, among my acquaintance and friends, me thinks it looks impertinent to be still alive.

Changes in veins of wit, like those of habits, or other modes.

Upon king Charles II.'s return, none more out of fashion among the new courtiers than the old earl of Norwich, that was esteemed the greatest wit in his father's time among the old.

Our thoughts are expressed by speech, our passions and motions as well without it.

Telling our griefs lessens them, and doubles our joys.

To hate company unnatural, or to be always silent in it.

Sociable, a quality ascribed to mankind.

Yet hatred, or distaste, brought Timon to live alone, and the shipwrecked men in an island of the Indies.

It is very different to live in little company, or in

none.

Proper for age to retire, as for youth to produce itself in the world.

One shows merit, or the hopes that they may one day have it the other has none; they never can. Proper for one to show excellences in any kind; for the other, to hide their defaults.

It is not to live, to be hid all one's life; but, if one has been abroad all day, one may be allowed to go home upon any great change of weather or company.

Nothing so useful as well-chosen conversation, or so pernicious as ill.

There may be too much, as well as too little.

Solitude damps thought and wit; too much company dissipates and hinders it from fixing.

In retreat a man feels more how life passes; if he likes it, is the happier; if he dislikes it, the more miserable, and ought to change for company, business, or entertainments, which keep a man from his own thoughts and reflections.

Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.

The great happiness is to have a friend to observe and tell one of one's faults, whom one has reason to esteem, and is apt to believe.

The great miscarriages of life come from the want of a good pilot, or from a sufficiency to follow one's own course or humour.

Sometimes out of pride to contradict others, or show one needs no instruction.

Do nothing to lose common reputation, which is the best possession of life, especially that of honour and truth.

Roughness or authority in giving counsel, easiness to receive all, or obstinacy to receive none, equally to be avoided.

Too much delicacy in one or the other, of ill effect.

Mark what makes other men esteemed, and imitate; what disesteemed, and avoid it.

Many very learned and able, without being agreeable; more the contrary.

Company to be avoided, that are good for nothing; to be sought and frequented, that excel în some quality or other.

Of all excellences that make conversation, good sense and good nature the most necessary, humour the pleasantest.

To submit blindly to none, to preserve the liberty of one's own reason, to dispute for instruction, not victory, and yield to reason as soon as it appears to us, from whence soever it comes.

This is to be found in all conditions and degrees of men; in a farmer or miller sometimes, as well as a lawyer or divine; among the learned and the great, though their reputation or manner often imposes on us.

The best rules to form a young man; to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's own opinions, and value others that deserve it.

The chief ingredients into the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding. Good nature is seen in a disposition to say and do what one thinks will please or profit others.

Good breeding, in doing nothing one thinks will either hurt or displease them.

Good nature and good sense come from our births or tempers; good breeding and truth, chiefly by education and converse with men : yet truth seems ,much in one's blood, and is gained too by good sense

and reflection; that nothing is a greater possession, nor of more advantage to those that have it, as well as those that deal with it.

Offensive and undistinguished raillery comes from ill nature, and desire of harm to others, though without good to one's self; or vanity, and a desire of valuing ourselves, by showing others' faults and

follies, and the comparison with ourselves, as free from them.

This vein in the world was originally railing; but, because that would not pass without return of blows, men of more wit than courage brought in this refinement, more dangerous to others, and less to themselves.

Charles Brandon's motto at a tournament, upon his marriage with the queen (the trappings of his horse being half cloth of gold, and the other half frize) :

Cloth of gold, do not despise,

Though thou art match'd with cloth of frize:

Cloth of frize, be not too bold,

Though thou art match'd with cloth of gold.