Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.

Comedy naturally wears itself out - destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.

Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings; and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves.

The truth is, we pamper little griefs into great ones, and bear great ones as well as we can.

If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous; we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it.