A fig for your bill of fare; show me your bill of company.

I cannot imagine why we should be at the expense to furnish wit for succeeding ages, when the former have made no sort of provision for ours.

What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.

Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting.

Those dreams that on the silent night intrude, and with false flitting shapes our minds delude ... are mere productions of the brain. And fools consult interpreters in vain.

There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.

Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.