~Diffidence.~--Nothing sinks a young man into low company, both of women
and men, so surely as timidity and diffidence of himself. If he thinks
that he shall not, he may depend upon it he will not, please. But with
proper endeavors to please, and a degree of persuasion that he shall, it
is almost certain that he will.--_Chesterfield._
No congress, nor mob, nor guillotine, nor fire, nor all together, can
avail, to cut out, burn, or destroy the offense of superiority in
persons. The superiority in him is inferiority in me.--_Emerson._
~Dignity.~--It is at once the thinnest and most effective of all the
coverings under which duncedom sneaks and skulks. Most of the men of
dignity, who awe or bore their more genial brethren, are simply men who
possess the art of passing off their insensibility for wisdom, their
dullness for depth, and of concealing imbecility of intellect under
haughtiness of manner.--_Whipple._
~Dirt.~--"Ignorance," says Ajax, "is a painless evil;" so, I should think,
is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.--_George
Eliot._