An English tongue, if refined to a certain standard, might perhaps be fixed forever.
So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men that they will grasp at all, and can form no scheme of perfect happiness with less.
When any one person or body of men seize into their hands the power in the last resort, there is properly no longer a government, but what Aristotle and his followers call the abuse and corruption of one.
Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind.
Silks, velvets, calicoes, and the whole lexicon of female fopperies.
Old sciences are unraveled like old stockings, by beginning at the foot.
Fond of those hives where folly reigns, And cards and scandal are the chains, Where the pert virgin slights a name, And scorns to redden into shame.
You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Venus, a beautiful, good-natured lady, was the goddess of love; Juno, a terrible shrew, the goddess of marriage: and they were always mortal enemies.
Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her; Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she’s right; She may then grow wise for spite.
I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an expedient.
Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending. May you live all the days of your life.
Kitchen Physic is the best Physic.
The two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of the spider.
The scholars of Ireland seem not to have the least conception of style, but run on in a flat phraseology, often mingled with barbarous terms.
Simplicity, without which no human performance can arrive at perfection.
Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects, – frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.
The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion.
Whence proceeds this weight we lay On what detracting people say? Their utmost malice cannot make Your head, or tooth, or finger ache; Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face, Or put one feature out of place.