Pride destroys all symmetry and grace, and affectation is a more terrible enemy to fine faces than the small-pox.

The man is mechanically turned, and made for getting. . . . It was verily prettily said that we may learn the little value of fortune by the persons on whom Heaven is pleased to bestow it.

A man advanced in years that thinks fit to look back on his former life, and calls that only life which was passed with satisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, will find himself very young, if not in infancy.

When a man is not disposed to hear music, there is not a more disagreeable sound in harmony than that of the violin.

A Woman is naturally more helpless than the other Sex; and a Man of Honour and Sense should have this in his View in all Manner of Commerce with her.

Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.

Compassion does not only refine and civilize human nature, but has something in it more pleasing and agreeable, than what can be met with in such an indolent happiness, such an indifference to mankind, as that in which the stoics placed their wisdom. As love is the most delightful passion, pity is nothing else but love softened by a degree of sorrow: In short, it is a kind of pleasing anguish, anguish as well as generous sympathy, that knits mankind together, and blends them in the same common lot.