People are scandalized if one laughs at what they call a serious thing. Suppose I were to have my head cut off to-morrow, and all the world were talking of it to-day, yet why might I not laugh to think, what a bustle is here about my head?

The greatest advantage I know of being thought a wit by the world is, that it gives one the greater freedom of playing the fool.

We ought in humanity no more to despise a man for the misfortunes of the mind than for those of the body, when they are such as he cannot help. Were this thoroughly considered, we should no more laugh at one for having his brains cracked than for having his head broke.

A man of wit is not incapable of business, but above it. A sprightly generous horse is able to carry a packsaddle as well as an ass; but he is too good to be put to the drudgery.

Wherever I find a great deal of gratitude in a poor man, I take it for granted there would be as much generosity if he were a rich man.

Flowers of rhetoric in sermons and serious discourses are like the blue and red flowers in corn, pleasing to those who come only for amusement, but prejudicial to him who would reap the profit from it.

When two people compliment each other with the choice of any thing, each of them generally gets that which he likes least.

He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.

Giving advice is many times only the privilege of saying a foolish thing one's self, under pretence of hindering another from doing one.

"Tis with followers at court as with followers on the road, who first bespatter those that go before, and then tread on their heels.

False happiness is like false money, it passes for a time as well as the true, and serves some ordinary occasions; but when it is brought to the touch, we find the lightness and allay, and feel the loss.

Dastardly men are like sorry horses, who have but just spirit and mettle enough to be mischievous.

Some people will never learn any thing, for this reason, because they understand every thing too soon.

A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labour of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practise it.

There are some solitary wretches who seem to 3 have left the rest of mankind, only as Eve left Adam, to meet the devil in private.

The vanity of human life is like a river, constantly passing away, and yet constantly coming on.

I seldom see a noble building, or any great piece of magnificence and pomp; but I think how little is all this to satisfy the ambition, or to fill the idea, of an immortal soul !

'Tis a certain truth, that a man is never so easy, or so little imposed upon, as among people of the best sense it costs far more trouble to be admitted or continued in ill company than in good; as the former have less understanding to be employed, so they have more vanity to be pleased; and to keep a fool constantly in good humour with himself and with others, is no very easy task.

The difference between what is commonly called ordinary company and good company, is only hearing the same things said in a little room, or in a large saloon, at small tables or at great tables, before two candles or twenty sconces.

Two women seldom grow intimate but at the ex pense of a third person; they make friendships as kings of old made leagues, who sacrificed some poor animal betwixt them, and commenced strict allies; so the ladies, after they have pulled some character to pieces, are from henceforth inviolable friends.

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrownecked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a gene rous thing.

Since 'tis reasonable to doubt most things, we should most of all doubt that reason of ours which would demonstrate all things.

To buy books as some do who make no use of them, only because they were published by an eminent printer, is much as if a man should buy clothes that did not fit him, only because they were made by some famous tailor.

Tis as offensive to speak wit in a fool's company, as it would be ill manners to whisper in it; he is displeased at both for the same reason, because he is ignorant of what is said.

A good-natured man has the whole world to be happy out of; whatever good befals his species, a well-deserving person promoted, a modest man advanced, an indigent one relieved, all this he looks upon but as a remoter blessing of Providence on himself; which then seems to make him amends for the narrowness of his own fortune, when it does the same thing it would have done had it been in his power: for what a luxurious man in poverty would want for horses and footmen, a good-natured man wants for his friend or the poor.

False critics rail at false wits, as quacks and impostors are still cautioning us to beware of counter

feits, and decry other cheats only to make more way for their own.

Old men, for the most part, are like old chronicles, that give you dull, but true accounts of times past, and are worth knowing only on that score.

There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty, as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change...

Wit in conversation is only a readiness of thought and a facility of expression, or (in the midwives' phrase) a quick conception, and an easy delivery.

We should manage our thoughts in composing a poem, as shepherds do their flowers in making a garland; first select the choicest, and then dispose them in the most proper places, where they give a lustre to each other: like the feathers in Indian crowns, which are so managed that every one reflects a part of its colour and gloss on the next.

As handsome children are more a dishonour to a deformed father than ugly ones, because unlike him-' self; so good thoughts, owned by a plagiary, bring him more shame than his own ill ones: when a poor thief appears in rich garments, we immediately know they are none of his own.

If he who does an injury be his own judge in his own cause, and does wrong without reason, by being the first aggressor; then surely it is no wonder the injured should think the same way,and