Matthew F. Hale Quote

Do not choose for your friends and familiar acquaintance those that are of an estate or quality too much above yours...You will hereby accustom yourselves to live after their rate in clothes, in habit, and in expenses, whereby you will learn a fashion and rank of life above your degree and estate, which will in the end be your undoing.

A letter of advice to his grand-children, by sir Matthew Hale (ed. 1816)