I maintain, against the enemies of the stage, that patterns of piety, decently represented, may second the precepts.

Pleasure never comes sincere to man; but lent by heaven upon hard usury.

Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting; there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.

All delays are dangerous in war.

I never saw any good that came of telling truth.

Swift was the race, but short the time to run.

For secrets are edged tools, And must be kept from children and from fools.