Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings.

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

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.

Women are all so far Machiavellians that they are never either good or bad by halves; their passions are too strong, and their reason too weak, to do anything with moderation.

Since attaining the full use of my reason no one has ever heard me laugh.

Cautiously avoid speaking of the domestic affairs either of yourself, or of other people. Yours are nothing to them but tedious gossip; and theirs are nothing to you.

Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.