Is it not wonderful, that the love of the parent should be so violent while it lasts and that it should last no longer than is necessary for the preservation of the young?

Those marriages generally abound most with love and constancy that are preceded by a long courtship. The passion should strike root and gather strength before marriage be grafted on it.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.

Life is not long enough for a coquette to play all her tricks in.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word Good-Breeding.

I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as an habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.

There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's headdress: within my own memory I have known it rise and fall above thirty degrees.

As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men.