All human excellence is but comparative. There may be persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.

The laws were not made so much for the direction of good men, as to circumscribe the bad.

Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it.

Those who will bear much, shall have much to bear.

All our pursuits, from childhood to manhood, are only trifles of different sorts and sizes, proportioned to our years and views.

People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.

Great allowances ought to be made for the petulance of persons laboring under ill-health.

The companion of an evening, and the companion for life, require very different qualifications.

We are all very ready to believe what we like.

Men will bear many things from a kept mistress, which they would not bear from a wife.

Women are so much in love with compliments that rather than want them, they will compliment one another, yet mean no more by it than the men do.

The first reading of a Will, where a person dies worth anything considerable, generally affords a true test of the relations' love to the deceased.

The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.

The difference in the education of men and women must give the former great advantages over the latter, even where geniuses are equal.

The plays and sports of children are as salutary to them as labor and work are to grown persons.

It is better to be thought perverse than insincere.

Every scholar, I presume, is not, necessarily, a man of sense.

Smatterers in learning are the most opinionated.

It may be very generous in one person to offer what it would be ungenerous in another to accept.

Those we dislike can do nothing to please us.

As a child is indulged or checked in its early follies, a ground is generally laid for the happiness or misery of the future man.

Women who have had no lovers, or having had one, two or three, have not found a husband, have perhaps rather had a miss than a loss, as men go.

Shame is a fitter and generally a more effectual punishment for a child than beating.

The life of a good man is a continual warfare with his passions.

The English, the plain English, of the politest address of a gentleman to a lady is, I am now, dear Madam, your humble servant: Pray be so good as to let me be your Lord and Master.

O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else!

People who act like angels ought to have angels to deal with.

Love will draw an elephant through a key-hole.

Men generally are afraid of a wife who has more understanding than themselves.

There would be no supporting life were we to feel quite as poignantly for others as we do for ourselves.

Love gratified is love satisfied, and love satisfied is indifference begun.

There are men who think themselves too wise to be religious.

Necessity may well be called the mother of invention but calamity is the test of integrity.

Love before marriage is absolutely necessary.

The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.

Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.

Let a man do what he will by a single woman, the world is encouragingly apt to think Marriage a sufficient amends.

Honeymoon lasts not nowadays above a fortnight.

Vast is the field of Science. The more a man knows, the more he will find he has to know.

Quantity in food is more to be regarded than quality. A full meal is a great enemy both to study and industry.

A man may keep a woman, but not his estate.

It is much easier to find fault with others, than to be faultless ourselves.

Calamity is the test of integrity.

Love is not a volunteer thing.

Prejudices in disfavor of a person fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed, than prejudices in favor.

All human excellence is but comparative. There may be persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.

What we want to tell, we wish our friend to have curiosity to hear.

A beautiful woman must expect to be more accountable for her steps, than one less attractive.

What likelihood is there of corrupting a man who has no ambition?