There are no persons more solicitous about the preservation of rank than those who have no rank at all. Observe the humors of a country christening, and you will find no court in Christendom so ceremonious as the quality of Brentford.

Amid the most mercenary ages it is but a secondary sort of admiration that is bestowed upon magnificence.

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.

There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.

A rich dress adds but little to the beauty of a person. It may possibly create a deference, but that is rather an enemy to love.

Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches.

When misfortunes happen to such as dissent from us in matters of religion, we call them judgments; when to those of our own sect, we call them trials; when to persons neither way distinguished, we are content to attribute them to the settled course of things.