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

Great abilities, when employed as God directs, do but make the owners of them greater and more painful servants to their neighbors.

We are so fond on one another because our ailments are the same.

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.

Those dreams that on the silent night intrude, and with false flitting shapes our minds delude ... are mere productions of the brain. And fools consult interpreters in vain.

It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.

The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.