Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.

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

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

There is no passion that is not finely expressed in those parts of the inspired writings which are proper for divine songs and anthems.

The greatest parts, without discretion as observed by an elegant writer, may be fatal to their owner; as Polyphemus, deprived of his eyes, was only the more exposed on account of his enormous strength and stature.

In England we see people lulled sleep with solid and elaborate discourses of piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the bellowings and distortions of enthusiasm.

A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature.