We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.

Nothing so fretful, so despicable as a Scribbler, see what I am, and what a parcel of Scoundrels I have brought about my ears, and what language I have been obliged to treat them with to deal with them in their own way; - all this comes of Authorship.

Our life is two fold Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality.

For a man to become a poet (witness Petrarch and Dante), he must be in love, or miserable.

Not to admire, is all the art I know To make men happy, or to keep them so. Thus Horace wrote we all know long ago; And thus Pope quotes the precept to re-teach From his translation; but had none admired, Would Pope have sung, or Horace been inspired?

Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.