You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp itsseat, and rule in its stead.

If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.

Lady ---- is safely delivered of a son, to the great joy of that noble family. The expression, of a woman's having brought her husband a son, seems to be a proper and cautious one; for it is never said, from whence.

I could wish there were a treaty made between the French and the English theatres, in which both parties should make considerableconcessions. The English ought to give up their notorious violations of the unities, and all their massacres, racks, dead bodies, and mangled carcasses, which they so frequently exhibit upon their stage. The French should engage to have more action, and less declamation, and not to cram and to crowd things together to almost a degree of impossibility from a too scrupulous adherence to the unities.

The talent of insinuation is more useful than that of persuasion, as everybody is open to insinuation, but scarce any to persuasion.

It is by vivacity and wit that man shines in company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon.

The French manner of hunting is gentlemanlike; ours is only for bumpkins and bodies. The poor beasts here are pursued and run downby much greater beasts than themselves; and the true British fox-hunter is most undoubtedly a species appropriated and peculiar to this country, which no other part of the globe produces.