Sensuality not only debases both body and mind, but dulls the keen edge of pleasure.

Wisdom is the talent of buying virtuous pleasures at the cheapest rate.

Great vices are the proper objects of our detestation, smaller faults of our pity, but affectation appears to be the only true source of the ridiculous.

There is perhaps no surer mark of folly, than to attempt to correct natural infirmities of those we love.

An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money.

Conscience is a judge in every man's breast, which none can cheat or corrupt, and perhaps the only incorrupt thing about him; yet, inflexible and honest as this judge is (however polluted the bench on which he sits), no man can, in my opinion, enjoy any applause which is not there adjudged to be his due.

And here, I believe, the wit is generally misunderstood. In reality, it lies in desiring another to kiss your a-- for having just before threatened to kick his; for I have observed very accurately, that no one ever desires you to kick that which belongs to himself, nor offers to kiss this part in another.