All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser; although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid.

Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.

Death is like thunder in two particulars; we are alarmed, at the sound of it; and it is formidable only from that which preceded it.

It is much easier to ruin a man of principle than a man of none, for he may be ruined through his scruples. Knavery is supple and can bend; but honesty is firm and upright, and yields not.

So blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer more to be damned than to be saved.

By paying our other debts, we are equal with all mankind; but in refusing to pay a debt of revenge, we are superior.

Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.