There are only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived from inanimate things-books, pictures and the face of nature.

Good temper is an estate for life.

Women never reason, and therefore they are (comparatively) seldom wrong.

If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you.

The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief.

One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.

Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs. The heaviest charge we can bring against the general texture of society is that it is commonplace. Our fancied superiority to others is in some one thing which we think most of because we excel in it, or have paid most attention to it; whilst we overlook their superiority to us in something else which they set equal and exclusive store by.