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

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

A fig for your bill of fare; show me your bill of company.

The greatest Inventions were produced in Times of Ignorance; as the Use of the Compass, Gunpowder, and Printing; and by the dullest Nation, as the Germans.

I have always a sacred veneration for anyone I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher.

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.

A poor spirit is poorer than a poor purse. A very few pounds a year would ease a man of the scandal of avarice.