Should you be unfortunate enough to have vices, you may, to a certain degree, even dignify them by a strict observance of decorum;at least they will lose something of their natural turpitude.
No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.
Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are.
A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion; it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.
The most familiar and intimate habitudes, connections, friendships, require a degree of good-breeding both to preserve and cement them.
A certain degree of fear produces the same effects as rashness.
People will, in a great degree, and not without reason, form their opinion of you upon that which they have of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb which says vry justly, 'Tell me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are.'
Let this be one invariable rule of your conduct--never to show the least symptom of resentment, which you cannot, to a certain degree, gratify; but always to smile, where you cannot strike.