Rhetoric in serious discourses is like the flowers in corn; pleasing to those who come only for amusement, but prejudicial to him who would reap profit from it.

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

A stander-by may sometimes, perhaps, see more of the game than he that plays it.

Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants.

Few are qualified to shine in company, but it is in most men's power to be agreeable.

Bread is the staff of life.

Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own; can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book; convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.