This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.

There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.

It is almost always the unhappiness of a victorious disputant to destroy his own authority by claiming too many consequences, or diffusing his proposition to an indefensible extent.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.

Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour.

As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.