Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.

They that have lived a single day have lived an age.

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

For a woman to be at once a coquette and a bigot is more than the humblest of husbands can bear; she should mercifully choose between the two.

There are few wives so perfect as not to give their husbands at least once a day good reason to repent of ever having married, or at least of envying those who are unmarried.

A man must have very eminent qualities to hold his own without being polite.

When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.