By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd; The sports of children satisfy the child.

To make a fine gentleman, several trades are required, but chiefly a barber.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.

Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he; Full well the busy whisper circling round Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd. Yet was he kind, or if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault; The village all declar'd how much he knew, 'Twas certain he could write and cipher too.

A French woman is a perfect architect in dress: she never, with Gothic ignorance, mixes the orders; she never tricks out a snobby Doric shape with Corinthian finery; or, to speak without metaphor, she conforms to general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private beauty.

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.

Of all kinds of ambition, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest