The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the course of virtue, but seldom or ever reclaims the vicious.

I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.

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.

Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.

Some dire misfortune to portend, no enemy can match a friend.

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

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.