If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.

It is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilised society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together.

Pity is not natural to man. Children and savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; but we have not pity unless we wish to relieve him.

Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.

No man can perform so little as not to have reason to congratulate himself on his merits, when he beholds the multitude that live in total idleness, and have never yet endeavoured to be useful.

Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having.

The roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must wither follow or meet one another...