Fear manifested invites danger.

Women of fashion and character--I do not mean absolutely unblemished--are a necessary ingredient in the composition of good company; the attention which they require, and which is always paid them by well-bred men, keeps up politeness, and gives a habit of good-breeding; whereas men, when they live together without the lenitive of women in company, are apt to grow careless, negligent, and rough among one another.

Cardinal Mazarin was a great knave, but no great man; much more cunning than able; scandalously false and dirtily greedy.

Awkwardness is a more real disadvantage than it is generally thought to be; it often occasions ridicule, it always lessens dignity.

Of those who really love their sons, few know how to do it. Some spoil them when they are young, and then quarrel with them when they are grown up, for having been spoiled; some love them like mothers, and attend only to the bodily health and strength of the hopes of their family, solemnize his birthday, and rejoice, like the subjects of the Great Mogul, at the increase of his bulk: while others, minding, as they think, only essentials, take pains and pleasure to see in their heir, all their favourite weaknesses and imperfections.

A vulgar man is captious and jealous; eager and impetuous about trifles. He suspects himself to be slighted, and thinks everything that is said meant at him.

If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.