Health is so necessary to all the duties, as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly.

Sir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good from fear of remote evil; - from fear of its being abused.

Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.

By forbearing to do what may innocently be done, we may add hourly new vigor to resolution.

In discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question is, whether the fact be justly stated. That which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected.

The art of the writer, like that of the player, is attained by slow degrees. The power of distinguishing and discriminating comick characters, or of filling tragedy with poetical images, must be the gift of nature, which no instruction nor labour can supply; but the art of dramatick disposition, the contexture of the scenes, the involution of the plot, the expedients of suspension, and the strategems of surprise, are to be learned by practice.

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.