Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.

Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.

It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.

Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.

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.

Pride, ill nature, and want of sense are the three great sources of ill manners; without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.

So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men that they will grasp at all, and can form no scheme of perfect happiness with less.