In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.

Smooth your way to the head through the heart. The way of reason is a good one: but it is commonly something longer, and perhapsnot so sure.

If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.

Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.

Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.

The great, the rich, the powerful, too often bestow their favours upon their inferiors in the manner they bestow their scraps upontheir dogs, so as neither to oblige man nor dogs. It is no wonder if favours, benefits, and even charities thus bestowed ungraciously, should be as coldly and faintly acknowledged.

In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.