An excuse is a lie guarded.

It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

Books, the children of the brain.

Daphne knows, with equal ease, How to vex and how to please; But the folly of her sex Makes her sole delight to vex.

An intelligent person should put money in the beginning, but not in heart

We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking.