We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown.

Quality and title have such allurements that hundreds are ready to give up all their own importance, to cringe, to flatter, to look little, and to pall every pleasure in constraint, merely to be among the great, though without the least hopes of improving their understanding or sharing their generosity. They might be happier among their equals.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

Whatever the skill of any country may be in the sciences, it is from its excellence in polite learning alone that it must expect a character from posterity.

Paltry affectation, strained allusions, and disgusting finery are easily attained by those who choose to wear them; they are but too frequently the badges of ignorance or of stupidity, whenever it would endeavor to please.

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.