I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this usefull invention into fashion in England, and I should not fail to write to some of our Doctors very particularly about it, if I knew anyone of 'em that I thought had Virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of Revenue for the good of Mankind, but that Distemper is too beneficial to them not to expose to all their Resentment the hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it.

I have all my life been on my guard against the information conveyed by the sense of hearing -- it being one of my earliest observations, the universal inclination of humankind is to be led by the ears, and I am sometimes apt to imagine that they are given to men as they are to pitchers, purposely that they may be carried about by them.

Muse, time has taught me that all metaphysical systems, even historical facts given as truths, are hardly that, so I amuse myself with more agreeable lies; I no longer read anything but novels.

Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide,- In part she is to blame that has been tried: He comes too near that comes to be denied.

But the fruit that can fall without shaking Indeed is too mellow for me.

I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.

I am afraid we are little better than straws upon the water; we may flatter ourselves that we swim, when the current carries us along.