Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to bre… - William Hazlitt

If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation.

I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them.

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.