I have never had any great esteem for the generality of the fair sex, and my only consolation for being of that gender has been the assurance it gave me of never being married to any one among them.

Life is too short for a long story

My dear Smollett ... disgraces his talent by writing those stupid romances called history.

We should ask, not who is the most learned, but who is the best learned.

Lord Bacon makes beauty to consist of grace and motion.

Nature is indeed a specious ward, nay, there is a great deal in it if it is properly understood and applied, but I cannot bear to hear people using it to justify what common sense must disavow. Is not Nature modifed by art in many things? Was it not designed to be so? And is it not happy for human society that it is so? Would you like to see your husband let his beard grow, until he would be obliged to put the end of it in his pocket, because this beard is the gift of Nature?

'Tis a sort of duty to be rich, that it may be in one's power to do good, riches being another word for power.