Wit in women is apt to have bad consequences; like a sword without a scabbard, it wounds the wearer and provokes assailants

Wit in women is apt to have bad consequences; like a sword without a scabbard, it wounds the wearer and provokes assailants.

. . . there is a much higher character from that of a wit or a poet or a savant, which is that of a rational sociable being, willing to carry on the commerce of life with all the sweetness and condescension, decency and virtue will permit.

Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me; leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing; 'tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.

There is small disproportion betwixt a fool who useth not wit because he hath it not and him that useth it not when it should avail him.

Minds ripen at very different ages.