“Tis hard for an empty bag to stand upright.”

“Tis easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.”

“Tis a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his.”

“Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.”

“By my rambling digressions, I perceive myself to be grown old. I used to write more methodically, but one does not dress for private company as for a public ball. Perhaps 'tis only negligence.”

“Somebody, it seemed, gave it out that I loved ladies; and then everybody presented me their ladies (or the ladies presented themselves) to be embraced, that is to have their necks kissed...The French ladies had a thousand other ways of rendering themselves agreeable by their various attentions and civilities, and their sensible conversation. Tis a delightful people to live with.”

“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self.”