You Must Labour To Acquire That Great

Next To Doing Things That Deserve To Be Written, Nothing Gets A Man More Credit, Or Gives Him More Pleasure Than To Write Things That Deserve To Be Read.

Let Your Letter Be Written As Accurately As You Are Able,--i Mean With Regard To Language, Grammar, And Stops; For As To The Matter Of It The Less Trouble You Give Yourself The Better It Will Be. Letters Should Be Easy And Natural, And Convey To The Persons To Whom We Send Them Just What We Should Say To The Persons If We Were With Them.

A Seeming Ignorance Is Very Often A Most Necessary Part Of Worldly Knowledge. It Is, For Instance, Commonly Advisable To Seem Ignorant Of What People Offer To Tell You; And When They Say, Have Not You Heard Of Such A Thing? To Answer No, And To Let Them Go On, Though You Know It Already.

The Only Sure Way Of Avoiding These Evils [vanity And Boasting] Is Never To Speak Of Yourself At All. But When, Historically, Youare Obliged To Mention Yourself, Take Care Not To Drop One Single Word That Can Directly Or Indirectly Be Construed As Fishing For Applause.

For My Own Part, I Would Rather Be In Company With A Dead Man Than With An Absent One; For If The Dead Man Gives Me No Pleasure, At Least He Shows Me No Contempt; Whereas The Absent One, Silently Indeed, But Very Plainly, Tells Me That He Does Not Think Me Worth His Attention.