Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger at his death.

Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. A small drinking glass and a large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small.

Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.