Next to clothes being fine, they should be well made, and worn easily; for a man is only the less genteel for a fine coat, if, in wearing it, he shows a regard for it, and is not as easy in it as if it was a plain one.

Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.

Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon; they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compassto direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their voyage.

Were you to converse with a king, you ought to be as easy and unembarrassed as with your own valet-de chambre; but yet every look,word, and action should imply the utmost respect.... You must wait till you are spoken to; you must receive, not give, the subject of conversation, and you must even take care that the given subject of such conversation do not lead you into any impropriety.

Our self-love is mortified, when we think our opinions, and even our tastes, customs, and dresses, either arraigned or condemned;as, on the contrary, it is tickled and flattered by approbation.

Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.

For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one; for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt; whereas the absent one, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention.