Flattery is the worst and falsest way of showing our esteem.

War: that mad game the world so loves to play.

Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.

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

What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.

Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.

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