Butler compared the tongues of these eternal talkers to race-horses, which go the faster the less weight they carry.

Secrecy is the soul of all great designs. Perhaps more has been effected by concealing our own intentions than by discovering those of our enemy.

The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health and power.

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy.

Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it.

Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.

Never join with your friend when he abuses his horse or his wife, unless the one is about to be sold, the other to be buried.