Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship.

Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting.

It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many.

When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not.

Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.

There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity; nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure.

Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.