... there's nothing but quarreling with the women; it's my belief they like it better than victuals and drink.

Imagination took the reins, and reason, slow-paced, though sure-footed, was unequal to a race with so eccentric and flighty a companion.

You must not sneeze. If you have a vehement cold you must take no notice of it; if your nose membranes feel a great irritation you must hold your breath; if a sneeze still insists upon making its way you must oppose it keeping your teeth grinding together; if the violence of the pulse breaks some blood-vessel you must break the blood-vessel -- but not sneeze.

O, we all acknowledge our faults, now; 'tis the mode of the day: but the acknowledgment passes for current payment; and therefore we never amend them.

When young people are too rigidly sequestered from [the world], their lively and romantic imaginations paint it to them as a paradise of which they have been beguiled; but when they are shown it properly, and in due time, they see it such as it really is, equally shared by pain and pleasure, hope and disappointment.

No man is in love when he marries. He may have loved before; I have even heard he has sometimes loved after: but at the time never. There is something in the formalities of the matrimonial preparations that drive away all the little cupidons.

to be sure, marriage is all in all with the ladies; but with us gentlemen it's quite another thing!