Most sorts of diversion in men, children and other animals, are in imitation of fighting.

When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.

Let a man be ne'er so wise, he may be caught with sober lies.

I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.

Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship.

Perverseness is your whole defence.

Neither is it safe to count upon the weakness of any man's understanding, who is thoroughly possessed of the spirit of revenge to sharpen his invention.