May you live every day of your life.
And he gave it for his opinion, “that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.
Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
Opium is not so stupefying to many persons as an afternoon sermon.
I remember it was with extreme difficulty that I could bring my master to understand the meaning of the word opinion, or how a point could be disputable; because reason taught us to affirm or deny only where we are certain; and beyond our knowledge we cannot do either.
Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions.
I desired that the Senate of Rome might appear before me in one large chamber, and a modern representative, in counterview, in another. The first seemed to be an assembly of heroes and demi-gods; the other, a knot of pedlars, pick-pockets, highwaymen, and bullies.
But a Broom-stick, perhaps you will say, is an Emblem of a Tree standing on its Head; and pray what is Man but a topsy-turvy Creature? His Animal Faculties perpetually mounted on his Rational; his Head where his Heels should be, groveling on the Earth.
Truth shines the brighter clad in verse.
Phantasie ist die Gabe, unsichtbare Dinge zu sehen.
Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.
We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. “Future ages shall talk of this; they shall be famous to all posterity;” whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
Then, rising with Aurora’s light, The Muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline.
You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday.