If you have a grateful heart (which is a miracle amongst you statesmen), show it by directing the bearer to the best wine in town, and pray let not this highest point of sacred friendship be performed slightly, but go about it with all due deliberation and care, as holy priests to sacrifice, or as discreet thieves to the wary performance of burglary and shop-lifting. Let your well-discerning palate (the best judge about you) travel from cellar to cellar and then from piece to piece till it has lighted on wine fit for its noble choice and my approbation.
John WilmotTo pick out the wildest and most fantastical odd man alive, and to place your kindness there, is an act so brave and daring as will show the greatness of your spirit and distinguish you in love, as you are in all things else, from womankind.
John WilmotGod bless our good and gracious King, Whose promise none relies on; Who never said a foolish thing, Nor ever did a wise one.
John WilmotMothers who force their daughters into interested marriage, are worse than the Ammonites who sacrificed their children to Moloch--the latter undergoing a speedy death, the former suffering years of torture, but too frequently leading to the same result.
John Wilmot