As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness before men.

It is not enough that you can form nay, and follow, the most excellent rules for conducting yourself in the world. You must also know when to deviate from them, and where lies the exception.

Removing prejudices is, alas! too often removing the boundary of a delightful near prospect in order to let in a shockingly extensive one.

I hardly know a sight that raises one's indignation more than that of an enlarged soul joined to a contracted fortune; unless it be that so much more common one, of a contracted soul joined to an enlarged fortune.

We laugh heartily to see a whole flock of sheep jump because one did so. Might not one imagine that superior beings do the same, and for exactly the same reason?

There is an unfortunate disposition in a man to attend much more to the faults of his companions which offend him, than to their perfections which please him.

A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.