Sensitive people wish to be loved; vain people wish only to be preferred. [ Levis ]

A quiet mediocrity is still to be preferred before a troubled superfluity. [ Suckling ]

A woman is never displeased if we please several other women, provided she is preferred: it is so many more triumphs for her. [ Ninon de Lenclos ]

Houses are built to live in more than to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had. [ Bacon ]

When we read that the lost sheep is preferred to the rest of the flock, we are tempted to think that penitence is preferable to innocence.

When a woman is deliberating with herself whom she shall choose of many near each other in other pretensions, certainly he of the best understanding is to be preferred. [ Steele ]

Mutability is the badge of infirmity; it is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike; now he is for marrying, and now a mistress is preferred to a wife; now he is ambitious and aspiring, presently the meanest servant is not more humble than he; this hour he squanders his money away, the next he turns miser; sometimes he is frugal and serious, at other times profuse, airy, and gay. [ Charron ]