Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.

Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation, as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.

Modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.

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.

Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.

A ridiculous passion which hath no being but in play-books and romances.

Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.