Possession, they say, is eleven points of the law.

He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.

Argument is the worst sort of conversation.

I have always a sacred veneration for anyone I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher.

The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.

A fig for your bill of fare; show me your bill of company.

It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end.