I often think how much easier the world would have been to manage if Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini had been at Oxford.

Friendship cannot live with ceremony, nor without civility.

In our corrupted state, common weaknesses and defects contribute more towards the reconciling us to one another than all the precepts of the philosophers and divines.

The plainer the dress, the greater luster does beauty appear.

The several sorts of religion in the world are little more than so many spiritual monopolies.

Ignorance makes most men go into a political party, and shame keeps them from getting out of it.

The Triumph of Wit is to make your good Nature subdue your Censure; to be quick in seeing Faults, and slow in exposing them. You are to consider, that the invisible thing called a Good Name, is made up of the Breath of Numbers that speak well of you; so that if by a disobliging Word you silence the meanest, the Gale will be less strong which is to bear up your Esteem.