A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms.

It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.

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.

Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Our Grub-street biographers watch for the death of a great man like so many undertakers on purpose to make a penny of him.

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

The lives of great men cannot be writ with any tolerable degree of elegance or exactness within a short time after their decease.