Being married to those sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion is excited and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but creepers at best and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about.

Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded; for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadsul than its extinction.

A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century

You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.

By those who look close to the ground dirt will be seen. I hope I see things from a greater distance.

The public pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit.

I respect Millar, sir: he has raised the price of literature.