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

There is no talent so useful toward rising in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally possessed by the dullest sort of men, and in common speech called discretion; a species of lower prudence, by the assistance of which, people of the meanest intellectuals, without any other qualification, pass through the world in great tranquillity, and with universal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence.

The most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.

Orators inflame the people, whose anger is really but a short fit of madness.

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.

The translators of the Bible were masters of an English style much fitter for that work than any we see in our present writings; the which is owing to the simplicity that runs through the whole.

Patience alleviates, as impatience augments, pain; thus persons of strong will suffer less than those who give way to irritation.