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.
— Samuel Richardson
Handsome husbands often make a wife's heart ache.
Humility is a grace that shines in a high condition but cannot, equally, in a low one because a person in the latter is already, perhaps, too much humbled.
If the education and studies of children were suited to their inclinations and capacities, many would be made useful members of society that otherwise would make no figure in it.
Some children act as if they thought their parents had nothing to do, but to see them established in the world and then quit it.
The mind can be but full. It will be as much filled with a small disagreeable occurrence, having no other, as with a large one.
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.
We are all very ready to believe what we like.
Quantity in diet is more to be regarded than quality. A full meal is a great enemy both to study and industry.
The little words in the Republic of Letters, like the little folks in a nation, are the most useful and significant.
Women are always most observed when they seem themselves least to observe, or to lay out for observation.
There would be no supporting life were we to feel quite as poignantly for others as we do for ourselves.
A good man, though he will value his own countrymen, yet will think as highly of the worthy men of every nation under the sun.
Great allowances ought to be made for the petulance of persons laboring under ill-health.
Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.
A Stander-by is often a better judge of the game than those that play.
Love gratified is love satisfied, and love satisfied is indifference begun.
Whenever we approve, we can find a hundred good reasons to justify our approbation. Whenever we dislike, we can find a thousand to justify our dislike.
It may be very generous in one person to offer what it would be ungenerous in another to accept.
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.
Hope is the cordial that keeps life from stagnating.
The difference in the education of men and women must give the former great advantages over the latter, even where geniuses are equal.
Tutors who make youth learned do not always make them virtuous.
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.
To what a bad choice is many a worthy woman betrayed, by that false and inconsiderate notion, That a reformed rake makes the best husband!
From sixteen to twenty, all women, kept in humor by their hopes and by their attractions, appear to be good-natured.
There is but one pride pardonable; that of being above doing a base or dishonorable action.
There are men who think themselves too wise to be religious.
People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.
Sorrow makes an ugly face odious.
A beautiful woman must expect to be more accountable for her steps, than one less attractive.
Love before marriage is absolutely necessary.
Prejudices in disfavor of a person fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed, than prejudices in favor.
Let a man do what he will by a single woman, the world is encouragingly apt to think Marriage a sufficient amends.
Love will draw an elephant through a key-hole.
All our pursuits, from childhood to manhood, are only trifles of different sorts and sizes, proportioned to our years and views.
Honeymoon lasts not nowadays above a fortnight.
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.
Marriage is the highest state of friendship. If happy, it lessens our cares by dividing them, at the same time that it doubles our pleasures by mutual participation.
There is a pride, a self-love, in human minds that will seldom be kept so low as to make men and women humbler than they ought to be.
Smatterers in learning are the most opinionated.
The plays and sports of children are as salutary to them as labor and work are to grown persons.
It is much easier to find fault with others, than to be faultless ourselves.
The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue.
Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.
Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it.
The World, thinking itself affronted by superior merit, takes delight to bring it down to its own level.
Those who will bear much, shall have much to bear.
Men generally are afraid of a wife who has more understanding than themselves.
The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.
