History is a romance that is believed; romance, a history that is not believed.
Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.
This world is a comedy, not Life.
I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company.
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.
How posterity will laugh at us, one way or other! If half a dozen break their necks, and balloonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use: if it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted.