such is the effect of true politeness, that it banishes all restraint and embarassment.

I love and honour [Paulus Aemilius, in Plutarch's Lives], for his fondness for his children, which instead of blushing at, he avows and glories in: and that at an age, when almost all the heros and great men thought that to make their children and family a secondary concern, was the first proof of their superiority and greatness of soul.

To a heart formed for friendship and affection the charms of solitude are very short-lived.

Nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman; it is at once the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things.

The laws of custom make our [returning a visit] necessary. O how I hate this vile custom which obliges us to make slaves of ourselves! to sell the most precious property we boast, our time;--and to sacrifice it to every prattling impertinent who chooses to demand it!

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.

But if the young are never tired of erring in conduct, neither are the older in erring of judgment.