Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

The only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounceit true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn.

Among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure.

An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of Winter.

Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore, represented as blind.