Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but when puerile and beardless, confused and mixed with theirs.

Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest, and keeps incessantly whirling around, building up and becoming entangled in its own work, like silkworms, and is suffocated in it. A mouse in a pitch barrel...thinks it notices from a distance some sort of glimmer of imaginary light and truth; but while running toward it, it is crossed by so many difficulties and obstacles, and diverted by so many new quests, that it strays from the road, bewildered.

Intoxication is calculated to put heart into the elderly and give them delight in dancing.

Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men.

I see this evident, that we willingly accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions.

Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.

Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians.