Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross, though the extract or tincture be ever so agreeable.

However, I think a plain space near the eye gives it a kind of liberty it loves; and then the picture, whether you choose the grand or beautiful, should be held up at its proper distance. Variety is the principal ingredient in beauty; and simplicity is essential to grandeur.

Men of quality never appear more amiable than when their dress is plain. Their birth, rank, title and its appendages are at best indivious and as they do not need the assistance of dress, so, by their disclaiming the advantage of it, they make their superiority sit more easy.

Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.

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

Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.

A large, branching, aged oak is perhaps the most venerable of all inanimate objects.