... the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion ... that is to say all those who usually pass under the name of Free-thinkers.

Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.

A chuck under the chin is worth two kisses.

Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.

I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.

The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may be resolved into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and vice.

Judges... are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature in office.