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.

And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.

I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are as slaves.

The greatest Inventions were produced in Times of Ignorance; as the Use of the Compass, Gunpowder, and Printing; and by the dullest Nation, as the Germans.

Brutes find out where their talents lie; a bear will not attempt to fly.