Discord generally operates in little things; it is inflamed ... by contrariety of taste oftener than principles.

It is unpleasing to represent our affairs to our own disadvantage; yet it is necessary to shew the evils which we desire to be removed.

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.

By forbearing to do what may innocently be done, we may add hourly new vigor to resolution.

Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, 'tis the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can sooth, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared: he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the opera, must be contented to buzz in vain.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

The charm of London is that you are never glad or sorry for ten minutes together; in the country you are one or the other for weeks.