it is more to my personal happiness and advantage to indulge the love and admiration of excellence, than to cherish a secret envy of it.

She kindly laments that I am not of the party, and to be sure I honour great ladies, and I admire great wits, but I am of the same opinion in regard to assemblies that is held concerning oysters, that they are never good in a month that has not the letter R in it.

Few people know anything of the English history but what they learn from Shakespear; for our story is rather a tissue of personal adventures and catastrophes than a series of political events.

The muses crown virtue when fortune refuses to do it.

I never invite idiots to my house.

It is very unreasonable of people to expect one should be at home, because one is in the house. Of all privileges, that of invisibility is the most valuable.

Any wife will save you from purgatory, and a diligent one will secure heaven to you.