Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love; these are their universal characteristics. - Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling.

In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.

Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity.