Art is the filigrain of a little mind, and is twisted and involved and curled, but would reach farther if laid out in a straight line.

Exercise is the worst thing in the world and as bad an invention as gunpowder.

Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if the angels have any fun in them, how we must divert them!

Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.

A poet who makes use of a worse word instead of a better, because the former fits the rhyme or the measure, though it weakens the sense, is like a jeweller, who cuts a diamond into a brilliant, and diminishes the weight to make it shine more.

I am persuaded that foolish writers and foolish readers are created for each other; and that fortune provides readers as she does mates for ugly women.

The sure way of judging whether our first thoughts are judicious, is to sleep on them. If they appear of the same force the next morning as they did over night, and if good nature ratifies what good sense approves, we may be pretty sure we are in the right.