Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.

Terrestrial happiness is of short duration. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odors.

A man who is good enough to go to heaven is good enough to be a clergyman.

All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us.

Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired; but when once he begins to contrive how his sentiments may be received, not with most ease to his reader, but with most advantage to himself, he then transfers his consideration from words to sounds, from sentences to periods, and, as he grows more elegant, becomes less intelligible.

Governors being accustomed to hear of more crimes than they can punish, and more wrongs than they can redress, set themselves at ease by indiscriminate negligence, and presently forget the request when they lose sight of the petitioner.

Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence.