The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and wise; and to set… - William Makepeace Thackeray

Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire.

Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor’s accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire.

Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them—almost all women;—a vast number of clever, hard-headed men.

Society having ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders.

Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin,
That never has known the barber’s shear,
All your wish is woman to win,
This is the way that boys begin,—
Wait till you come to Forty Year.