In a letter to a friend the thought is often unimportant, and the feeling, if it be only a desire to entertain him, every thing.
Whosoever in writing a modern history shall follow the truth too near the heels it may haply strike out his teeth.
In a word, we may gather out of History a policy no less wise than I eternal; by the comparison and application of other mens fore-passed miseries with our own like errours and ill-deservings.
No mortal thing can bear so high a price, But that with mortal thing it may be bought.
It is not truth, but opinion that can travel the world without a passport.
What dependence can I have on the alleged events of ancient history, when I find such difficulty in ascertaining the truth regarding a matter that has taken place only a few minutes ago, and almost in my own presence!
What is our life? A play of passion. Our mirth the music of division. Our mother’s wombs the tyring houses be, Where we are drest for this short Comedy.
Never spend anything before thou have it; for borrowing is the canker and death of every man’s estate.
Covetous ambition, thinking all too little which presently it hath, supposeth itself to stand in need of that which it hath not.
A wandering minstrel I A thing of shreds and patches Of ballads, songs and snatches And dreamy lullaby!
Oh, doughty sons of Hungary! May all success Attend and bless Your warlike ironmongery!
Expressive glances Shall be our lances And pops of Sillery Our light artillery.
The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well: Yet Britain set the world ablaze In good King George’s glorious days!
It is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.
I am the monarch of the sea, The Ruler of the Queen’s Navee, Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants And we are his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!
An anthology is like all the plums and orange peel picked out of a cake.
Except thou desire to hasten thine end, take this for a general rule, that thou never add any artificial heat to thy body by wine or spice.
Even such isTime, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
The engine is the heart of an aeroplane, but the pilot is its soul.
In an examination those who do not wish to know ask questions of those who cannot tell.
The cavalry, in particular, were not friendly to the aeroplane, which it was believed, would frighten the horses.