A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious and low.

A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.

No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.

Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.

The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of words; for whosoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both.

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

I row after health like a waterman.