Every woman is at heart a rake.
Homer excels all the inventors of other arts in this: that he has swallowed up the honor of those who succeeded him.
Such as are still observing upon others are like those who are always abroad at other men’s houses, reforming everything there while their own runs to ruin.
The villain’s censure is extorted praise.
What then remains, but well our power to use, And keep good-humor still whate’er we lose? And trust me, dear, good-humor can prevail, When airs, and flights, and screams, and scolding fail.
Whate’er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbor with himself.
Fortune in men has some small diff’rence made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade, The cobbler apron’d, and the parson gown’d, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown’d.
Modest plainness sets off sprightly wit, For works may have more with than does ’em good, As bodies perish through excess of blood.
Fickle Fortune reigns, and, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.
Cavil you may, but never criticise.
I lose my patience, and I own it too, When works are censur’d, not as bad but new; While if our Elders break all reason’s laws, These fools demand not pardon but Applause.
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss.
What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul’s calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy, Is virtue’s prize.
It often happens that those are the best people whose characters have been most injured by slanderers: as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been picking at.
A man who admires a fine woman, has yet not more reason to wish himself her husband, than one who admired the Hesperian fruit, would have had to wish himself the dragon that kept it.
It is observable that the ladies frequent tragedies more than comedies; the reason may be, that in tragedy their sex is deified and adored, in comedy exposed and ridiculed.
But see how oft ambition’s aims are cross’d, and chiefs contend ’til all the prize is lost!
To balance Fortune by a just expense, Join with Economy, Magnificence.
Praise is like ambergrease: a little whiff of it, and by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to your nose, it is a stink, and strikes you down.
With the mistake your life goes in reverse. Now you can see exactly what you did Wrong yesterday and wrong the day before And each mistake leads back to something worse.