Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful.

By anticipation we sugar misery and enjoy happiness before they are in being. We can set the sun and stars forward, or lose sight of them by wandering into those retired parts of eternity when the heavens and earth shall be no more.

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.

We make provisions for this life as if it were never to have an end, and for the other life as though it were never to have a beginning.

Fables take off from the severity of instruction, and enforce it at the same time that they conceal it.

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.

A man who has any relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties or receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.