"So, naturalists observe, a flea Hath smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bit 'em; And so proceed ad infinitum. Thus every poet, in his kind, Is bit by him that comes behind."

"Hobbes clearly proves that every creature Lives in a state of war by nature."

"Where Young must torture his invention To flatter knaves, or lose his pension."

"So geographers, in Afric maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns."

"As learned commentators view In Homer more than Homer knew."

"It is a maxim among lawyers that whatever hath been done before may be done again, and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions, and the judges never fail of directing them accordingly."

"Poor Nations are hungry, and rich Nations are proud, and Pride and Hunger will ever be at Variance."

"I said the thing which was not. (For they have no word in their language to express lying or falsehood.)"

"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers."

"And he gave it for his opinion, that whosoever 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."

"I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth."

"When I behold this I sighed, and said within myself, "Surely mortal man is a broomstick!" Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, till the axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a withered trunk; he then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never grew on his head; but now should this our broomstick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, through the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges that we are of our own excellencies, and other men's defaults!"

"He is taller by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders."

"The two maxims of any great man at court are always to keep his countenance and never to keep his word."

"When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

"Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion."

"The Bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking."

"No wise man ever wished to be younger."

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."

"Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age…"

"Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent."

"The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages."

"Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping."

"Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of."

"Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly."

"Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with politics."

"Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude, will convince others the more, as he appears convinced himself."

"The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former."

"The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit."

"The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes."

"What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage."

"A nice man is a man of nasty ideas."

"Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old."

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."

"ALL Rivers go to the Sea, but none return from it. Xerxes wept when he beheld his Army, to consider that in less than a Hundred Years they would be all Dead. Anacreon was' Choakt with a Grape-stone, and violent Joy Kills as well as violent Grief. There is nothing in this World constant but Inconstancy; yet Plato thought that if Virtue would appear to the World in her own native Dress, all Men would be Enamoured with her. But now since Interest governs the World, and Men neglect the Golden Mean, Jupiter himself, if he came on the Earth would be Despised, unless it were as he did to Danae in a Golden Shower. For Men nowadays Worship the Rising Sun, and not the Setting."

"Laws are like Cobwebs which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through. But in Oratory the greatest Art is to hide Art."