RICHARD STEELE

A little in drink, but at all times your faithful husband.

The married state, with and without the affection suitable to it, is the completest image of heaven and hell we are capable of receiving in this life.

It is to be noted that when any part of this paper appears dull there is a design in it.

To be exempt from the Passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing Solitude.

I look upon it as a Point of Morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me.

I cannot think of any character below the flatterer, except he who envies him.

A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript.

There is no Pleasure like that of receiving Praise from the Praiseworthy.

It is an endless and frivolous Pursuit to act by any other Rule than the Care of satisfying our own Minds in what we do.

Nothing can atone for the lack of modesty; without which beauty is ungraceful and wit detestable.

A Woman is naturally more helpless than the other Sex; and a Man of Honour and Sense should have this in his View in all Manner of Commerce with her.

Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.

The fool within himself is the object of pity, until he is flattered.

That man never grows old who keeps a child in his heart.

Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.

I love to consider an Infidel, whether distinguished by the title of deist, atheist, or free-thinker.

There are so few who can grow old with a good grace.

There is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue.

You see, among men who are honored with the common appellation ogentleman, many contradictions to that character.

People spend their lives in the service of their passions instead of employing their passions in the service of their lives.

A Daughter: The companion, the friend, and the confidant of her mother, and the object of a pleasure something like the love between the angels to her father.

Pride destroys all symmetry and grace, and affectation is a more terrible enemy to fine faces than the small-pox.

I know of no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception.

One common calamity makes men extremely affect each other, though they differ in every other particular