For we seldom admire the wit, when we dislike the man.

Great wits, like great beauties, look upon mere esteem as a flat insipid thing; nothing less than admiration will content them.

That wit is truly amiable, which gladdens and enlivens every thing, which shines with a lustre gentle, but not faint, and powerful, but not glaring.

Men of superior vivacity and wit, when they take a wrong turn, are generally worse than other men: because wit, consisting in a lively representation of ideas assembled together, gives every sensible object those heightening touches, and that striking imagery, which is unknown to men of slower apprehensions: wit being to sensible objects, what light is to bodies; it does not merely show them as they are in themselves: it gives an adventitious colour, which is not a property inherent in them: it lends them beauties which are not their own.

We see how much a man has, and therefore we envy him; did we see how little he enjoys, we should rather pity him.

It must descend, as the dew, upon the tender herb, or like melting flakes of snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.

For we seldom admire the wit, when we dislike the man.