Be not too hasty to trust or to admire the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels, but they live like men.

Good sense alone is a sedate and quiescent quality, which manages its possessions well, but does not increase them; it collects few materials for its own operations, and preserves safety, but never gains supremacy.

Life is but short; no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorry, or contests upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry; and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled.

Quack: A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand. A vain boastful pretender to physick; An artful, tricking practitioner in physick.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.

There are occasions on which all apology is rudeness.

Men are most powerfully affected by those evils which themselves feel, or which appear before their own eyes.