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

In science, mistakes always precede the truth

Our [British] summers are often, though beautiful for verdure, so cold, that they are rather cold winters.

When the Prince of Piedmont [later Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia] was seven years old, his preceptor instructing him in mythology told him all the vices were enclosed in Pandora's box. "What! all!" said the Prince. "Yes, all." "No," said the Prince; "curiosity must have been without.

An ancient prophecy ... pronounced, That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it!

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.

[King René of Anjou (1409-80)] would not listen to the news of his son having lost the Kingdom of Naples, because he would not bedisturbed when painting a picture of a partridge.