A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.

Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime; the position is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable.

Elegance of manner is the outgrowth of refined and exalted sense.

Honest error is to be pitied not ridiculed.

People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.

It seems to me that physical sickness softens, just as moral sickness hardens, the heart.

The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy. Take common sense quantum sufficit; add a little application to the rules and orders of the House [of Commons], throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large quantity of purity, correctness and elegancy of style. Take it for granted that by far the greatest part of mankind neither analyze nor search to the bottom; they are incapable of penetrating deeper than the surface.