Complaisance, though in itself it be scarce reckoned in the number of moral virtues, is that which gives a lustre to every talent a man can be possessed of. It was Plato's advice to an unpolished writer that he should sacrifice to the graces. In the same manner I would advise every man of learning, who would not appear in the world a mere scholar or philosopher, to make himself master of the social virtue which I have here mentioned.

The woman that deliberates is lost.

Life is not long enough for a coquette to play all her tricks in.

There is not a more pleasante exercise of the mind than gratitude.

What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.

A source of cheerfulness to a good mind is the consideration of that Being on whom we have our dependence, and in whom, though we behold Him as yet but in the first faint discoveries of His perfections, we see everything that we can imagine as great glorious, or amiable. We find ourselves everywhere upheld by His goodness and surrounded by an immensity of love and mercy.

If our zeal were true and genuine we should be much more angry with a sinner than a heretic.