Life and death appear more certainly ours than whatsoever else; and yet hardly can that be called ours, which comes without our knowledge, and goes without it.

Cruelty in all countries is the companion of anger; but there is only one, and never was another on the globe, where she coquets both with anger and mirth.

There is a desire of property in the sanest and best men, which Nature seems to have implanted as conservative of her works, and which is necessary to encourage and keep alive the arts.

We oftener say things because we can say them well, than because they are sound and reasonable.

That which moveth the heart most is the best poetry; it comes nearest unto God, the source of all power.

We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.

In honest truth, a name given to a man is no better than a skin given to him; what is not natively his own falls off and comes to nothing.