Women of fashion and character--I do not mean absolutely unblemished--are a necessary ingredient in the composition of good company; the attention which they require, and which is always paid them by well-bred men, keeps up politeness, and gives a habit of good-breeding; whereas men, when they live together without the lenitive of women in company, are apt to grow careless, negligent, and rough among one another.

The difference between a man of sense and a fop is that the fop values himself upon his dress; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time he knows he must not neglect it.

A learned parson, rusting in his cell at Oxford or Cambridge, will reason admirably well upon the nature of man; will profoundly analyze the head, the heart, the reason, the will, the passions, the senses, the sentiments, and all those subdivisions of we know not what ; and yet, unfortunately, he knows nothing of man... He views man as he does colours in Sir Isaac Newton's prism, where only the capital ones are seen; but an experienced dyer knows all their various shades and gradations, together with the result of their several mixtures.

Our prejudices are our mistresses; reason is at best our wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded.

People will, in a great degree, and not without reason, form their opinion of you upon that which they have of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb which says vry justly, 'Tell me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are.'

Advice is seldom welcome, and those who need it the most, like it the least.

We are hardly ever grateful for a fine clock or watch when it goes right, and we pay attention to it only when it falters, for then we are caught by surprise. It ought to be the other way about.