That perfect tranquility of life, which is nowhere to be found but in retreat, a faithful friend and a good library.
There is no sinner like a young saint.
Each moment of a happy lover’s hour is worth an age of dull and common life.
God makes all things good; Man meddles with ’em and they become evil.
Faith, Sir, we are here today and gone tomorrow.
A poet is a painter in his way, he draws to the life, but in another kind; we draw the nobler part, the soul and the mind; the pictures of the pen shall outlast those of the pencil, and even worlds themselves.
Love ceases to be a pleasure, when it ceases to be a secret.
Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality.
I think a Play the best divertisement that wise men have: but I do also think them nothing so who do discourse so formallie about the rules of it, as if ’twere the grand affair of humane life.