Lord Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it known.

It is commonly said that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humor, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.

A cheerful, easy, open countenance will make fools think you a good-natured man, and make designing men think you an undesigning one.

I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive.

The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy. Take common sense quantum sufficit; add a little application to the rules and orders of the House [of Commons], throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large quantity of purity, correctness and elegancy of style. Take it for granted that by far the greatest part of mankind neither analyze nor search to the bottom; they are incapable of penetrating deeper than the surface.

Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.

If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.