Caprice in woman is the antidote to beauty.

Party loyalty lowers the greatest men to the petty level of the masses.

Life is a kind of sleep: old men sleep longest, nor begin to wake but when they are to die.

A man who is free and unmarried, if he has some intelligence, can rise above his fortune, mingle in society and meet the best people on an equal footing. This is harder for a married man: marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.

One should never risk a joke, even of the mildest and most unexceptional charters, except among people of culture and wit.

It is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?

A man unattached and without wife, if he have any genius at all, may raise himself above his original position, may mingle with the world of fashion, and hold himself on a level with the highest; this is less easy for him who is engaged; it seems as if marriage put the whole world in their proper rank.