How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.

This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.

Brisk talkers are generally slow thinkers.

What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.

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.

There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.

Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.