Anger and the thirst of revenge are a kind of fever; fighting and lawsuits, bleeding,--at least, an evacuation. The latter occasions a dissipation of money; the former, of those fiery spirits which cause a preternatural fermentation.

There is a certain flimsiness of poetry which seems expedient in a song.

Theirs is the present who can praise the past.

Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding than a church organ with devotion, or wine with good-nature.

It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave.

Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.

The fund of sensible discourse is limited; that of jest and badinerie is infinite.