A favor is half granted, when graciously refused.

'T is an old maxim in the schools, That flattery 's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.

Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.

I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are as slaves.

I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life.

He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.

Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.