Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.

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

If you love music hear it; go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you; but I insist upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous, contemptible light; brings him into a great deal of bad company; and takes up a great deal of time, which might be much better employed.

Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but let them feel at the same time the steadiness of your just resentment for there is a great difference between bearing malice, which is always ungenerous, and a resolute self-defense which is ever prudent and justifiable.

Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different.

When one is at play, one should not think of one's learning.

The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder.