If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.

Ale is meat, drink and cloth; it will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.

Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,--frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.

Brutes find out where their talents lie; A bear will not attempt to fly, A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five barred gate. A dog by instinct turns aside Who sees the ditch too deep and wide, But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries-Forbear! With obstinacy fixes there; And where the genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs.

When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.

That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.

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