Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.
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.
Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.
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.
Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.
Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps 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.
Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.
Not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
Life is a tragedy wherein we sit as spectators for a while and then act our part in it.
Perverseness is your whole defence.
I have always a sacred veneration for anyone I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher.
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