Satire is a composition of salt and mercury; and it depends upon the different mixture and preparation of those ingredients, that it comes out a noble medicine, or a rank poison.

Simplicity of manner is the last attainment. Men are very long afraid of being natural, from the dread of being taken for ordinary.

The cheat ambition, eager to espouse dominion, courts it with a lying show, and shines in borrowed pomp to serve a turn.

God help us! it is a foolish little thing, this human life, at the best; and it is half ridiculous and half pitiful to see what importance we ascribe to it, and to its little ornaments and distinctions.

Nothing is so firmly than that which is least known.

Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest of violence.

Damn the Solar System. Bad light; planets too distant; pestered with comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better myself.