“For virtue's self may too much zeal be had; the worst of madmen is a saint run mad.”
“Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”
“Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!”
“Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.”
“Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.”
“Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.”
“We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow. Our wiser sons, no doubt will think us so.”
“Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.”
“Did some more sober critics come abroad? If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.”
“What's fame? a fancy'd life in other's breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death.”
“Sure of their qualities and demanding praise, more go to ruined fortunes than are raised.”
“By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned; By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned.”
“True wit is nature to advantage dressed, what oft was thought, but never so well expressed.”
“How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?”
“I was not born for courts and great affairs, but I pay my debts, believe and say my prayers.”
“There goes a saying, and 'twas shrewdly said, ''Old fish at table, but young flesh in bed.''”
“Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.”
“It is with our judgments as with our watches: no two go just alike, yet each believes his own.”
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
“Many people are capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.”
“Teach me to feel another's woe. To hide the fault I see: That the mercy I show to others; that mercy also show to me.”
“The scripture in times of disputes is like an open town in times of war, which serves in differently the occasions of both parties.”
“Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!”
“No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday.”
“If, presume not to God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great.”
“Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.”
“Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored; dies before thy uncreating word: thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; and universal darkness buries all.”
“I find myself... hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.”
“But thousands die without or this or that, die, and endow a college, or a cat: To some, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate, Tenrich a bastard, or a son they hate.”
“Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.”