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.

A man with great talents, but void of discretion, is like Polyphemus in the fable, strong and blind, endued with an irresistible force, which for want of sight is of no use to him.

Riches are apt to betray a man into arrogance.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

Physic is, for the most part, only a substitute for temperance and exercise.

There is not, in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rise above reason, and yet fall infinitely short of it.

When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? My Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.