The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.

We often repent of our first thoughts, and scarce ever of our second.

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.

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 have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs and councils governed by foolish servants. I have known great ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who preferred none but dunces. I have known men of valor cowards to their wives. I have known men of cunning perpetually cheated. I knew three ministers who would exactly compute and settle the accounts of a kingdom, wholly ignorant of their own economy.

Two clergymen disputing whether ordination would be valid without the imposition of both hands, the more formal one said, "Do you think the Holy Dove could fly down with only one wing?

I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company.