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.

Lord Bath used to say of women, who are apt to say that they will follow their own judgment, that they could not follow a worse guide.

[French] authors are more afraid of offending delicacy and rules, than ambitious of sublimity.

A man of sense, though born without wit, often lives to have wit. His memory treasures up ideas and reflections; he compares themwith new occurrences, and strikes out new lights from the collision. The consequence is sometimes bons mots, and sometimes apothegms.

The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveler from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.

I have known men of valor cowards to their wives.

I do not dislike the French from the vulgar antipathy between neighboring nations, but for their insolent and unfounded air of superiority.