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

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.

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

[Corneille] was inspired by Roman authors and Roman spirit, Racine with delicacy by the polished court of Louis XIV.

Life is a farce, and should not end with a mourning scene.

Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.

The prosecution of [Warren] Hastings, though he should escape at last, must have good effect. It will alarm the servants of the Company in India, that they may not always plunder with impunity, but that there may be a retrospect; and it will show them that even bribes of diamonds to the Crown may not secure them from prosecution.