If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.

Who rant by note, and through the gamut rage; in songs and airs express their martial fire; combat in trills, and in a fugue expire.

One would think that the larger the company is in which we are engaged, the greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started into discourse; but, instead of this we find that conversation is never so much straightened and confined, as in numerous assemblies.

The productions of a great genius, with many lapses and inadvertences, are infinitely preferable to the works of an inferior kind of author which are scrupulously exact, and conformable to all the rules of correct writing.

Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to their mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the nations of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another and be united together by their common interest.

To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.

There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.