A town, before it can be plundered and, deserted, must first be taken; and in this particular Venus has borrowed a law from her consort Mars. A woman that wishes to retain her suitor must keep him in the trenches; for this is a siege which the besieger never raises for want of supplies, since a feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation. Inanition may cause it to die a slow death, but repletion always destroys it by a sudden one.

It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.

Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength.

Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain.

Despotism can no more exist in a nation until the liberty of the press be destroyed than the night can happen before the sun is set.

Sleep, the type of death, is also, like that which it typifies, restricted to the earth. It flies from hell and is excluded from heaven.

Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.