Many a truth is told in jest.

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.

When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.

In like manner, the disbelief of a Divine Providence renders a man uncapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence.

The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.

Punning is a talent which no man affects to despise but he that is without it.

My father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons.