In friendship, as well as in love, the mind is often the dupe of the heart.

Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than experience; which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken; for though spirit without experience is dangerous, experience without spirit is languid and ineffective.

Cardinal Mazarin was a great knave, but no great man; much more cunning than able; scandalously false and dirtily greedy.

A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs, and vulgar aphorisms; uses neither favourite words nor hard words, but takes great care to speak very correctly and grammatically, and to pronounce properly; that is, according to the usage of the best companies.

The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.

Style is the dress of thoughts, and let them be ever so just.

To take a wife merely as an agreeable and rational companion, will commonly be found to be a grand mistake.