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.

Our companions please us less from the charms we find in their conversation than from those they find in ours.

Whatever natural right men may have to freedom and independency, it is manifest that some men have a natural ascendency over others.

What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our pleasure we have more.

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.

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

I have often thought that the nature of women was interior to that of men in general, but superior in particular.