No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.

Long customs are not easily broken; he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labors in vain; and how shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves.

No, Sir, you will have much more influence by giving or lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality.

Without good humour, learning and bravery can only confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert, where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance. Without good humour virtue may awe by its dignity and amaze by its brightness, but must always be viewed at a distance, and will scarcely gain a friend or attract an imitator.

When a man marries a widow his jealousies revert to the past: no man is as good as his wife says her first husband was

How can children credit the assertions of parents, which their own eyes show them to be false? Few parents act in such a manner as much to enforce their maxims by the credit of their lives