Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

Nor do they trust their tongue alone, but speak a language of their own; can read a nod, a shrug, a look, far better than a printed book; convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down.

There is no quality so contrary to any nature which one cannot affect, and put on upon occasion, in order to serve an interest.

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

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not.

That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.