“In society one needs a flexible virtue; too much goodness can be blamable.”

Birth is nothing without virtue, and we have no claim to share in the glory of our ancestors unless we endeavor to resemble them.

Anyone may be an honorable man, and yet write verse badly.

We should look long and carefully at ourselves before we pass judgement on others.

It is fine for a woman to know a lot; but I don’t want her to have this shocking desire to be learned for learnedness sake. When I ask a woman a question, I like her to pretend to ignore what she really knows.

I will not leave you until I have seen you hanged.

I have the fault of being a little more sincere than is proper.

She is laughing up her sleeve at you.

I might, by chance, write something just as shoddy; But then I wouldn’t show it to everybody.

The great ambition of women is to inspire love.

Cultivated people should be superior to any consideration so sordid as a mercenary interest.

Birth means nothing where there is no virtue.

I believe that two and two are four and that four and four are eight.

There is no protection against slander.

Too great haste leads us to error.

When we are understood, we always speak well, and then all your fine diction serves no purpose.

Rest assured that there is nothing which wounds the heart of a noble man more deeply than the thought his honour is assailed.