necked 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 generous thing.

. Since it is 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.

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

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

We should manage our thoughts in composing any work, 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.

As handsome children are more a dishonour to a deformed father than ugly ones, because unlike himself; 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.

Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provisions of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.

The most positive men are the most credulous ; since they most believe themselves, and advise most with the falsest flatterer, and worst enemy, their own self-love.

Get your enemies to read your works, in order to mend them; for your friend is so much your second self, that he will judge too like you.

Women use lovers as they do cards; they play with them awhile, and when they have got all they can by them, throw them away, call for new ones, and then perhaps lose by the new ones all they got by the old ones.

Honour in a woman's mouth, like an oath in the mouth of a gamester, is ever still most used, as their truth is most questioned.

Women, as they are like riddles, in being unintelligible, so generally resemble them in this, that they please us no longer when once we know them.

A man, who admires a fine woman, has yet no more reason to wish himself her husband, than one who admired the Hesperian fruit, would have had to wish himself the dragon that kept it.

He who marries a wife, because he cannot always live chastely, is much like a man, who, finding a few humours in his body, resolves to wear a perpetual blister.

Married people, for being so closely united, are but the apter to part: as knots, the harder they are pulled, break the sooner.

A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants: what we call the charities and ties of affinity, prove but so many separate and clashing in

terests: the son wishes the death of the father; the younger brother that of the elder; the elder repines at the sisters' portions: when any of them marry, there are new divisions and new animosities. It is but natural and reasonable to expect all this, and yet we fancy no comfort but in a family.

Authors in France seldom speak ill of each other, but when they have a personal pique; authors in England seldom speak well of each other, but when they have a personal friendship.

There is nothing wanting to make all rational and disinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they should walk together every day.

Men are grateful in the same degree that they are resentful.

The longer we live, the more we shall be convinced, that it is reasonable to love God, and despise man, as far as we know either.

That character in conversation, which commonly passes for agreeable, is made up of civility and falsehood.

A short and certain way to obtain the character of a reasonable and wise man, is, whenever any one tells you his opinion, to comply with it.

What is generally accepted as virtue in women, is very different from what is thought so in men: a very good woman would but make a paltry man.

Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good humour, which is as much a virtue as drunken

ness.

Those people only will constantly trouble you with doing little offices for them, who least deserve you should do any.

We are sometimes apt to wonder to see those people proud, who have done the meanest things; whereas a consciousness of having done poor things, and a

shame of hearing of them, often make the composition we call pride.

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie: for an excuse is a lie guarded.

Praise is like ambergris; a little whiff of it, and by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to your nose, it is a stink, and strikes you down.

The general cry is against ingratitude; be sure the complaint is misplaced, it should be against vanity. None but direct villains are capable of wilful ingratitude; but almost every body is capable of thinking he has done more than another deserves, while the other thinks he has received less than he deserves.

I never knew any man in my life, who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.

Several explanations of casuists, to multiply the catalogue of sins, may be called amendments to the ten commandments.

It is observable that the ladies frequent tragedies more than comedies: the reason may be, that in tragedy their sex is deified and adored, in comedy exposed and ridiculed.

The character of covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness, or ill grace, in little or inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence. A very few pounds a-year would ease that man of the scandal of avarice.

Some men's wit is like a dark lantern, which serves their own turn, and guides them their own way but is never known (according to the Scripture phrase) either to shine forth before men, or to glorify their Father in Heaven.

It often happens that those are the best people, whose characters have been most injured by slan

ders; as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit, which the birds have been pecking at.

The people all running to the capital city, is like a confluence of all the animal spirits to the heart; a symptom that the constitution is in danger.

The wonder we often express at our neighbours keeping dull company, would lessen, if we reflected, that most people seek companions less to be talked to than to talk.

Amusement is the happiness of those that cannot

think.

Never stay dinner for a clergyman, who is to make a morning visit ere he comes, for he will think it his duty to dine with any greater man that asks him.

A contented man is like a good tennis-player, who never fatigues and confounds himself with running eternally after the ball, but stays till it comes to him.

Two things are equally unaccountable to reason, and not the object of reasoning; the wisdom of God, and the madness of man.

Many men, prejudiced early in disfavour of mankind by bad maxims, never aim at making friendships; and, while they only think of avoiding the evil, miss of the good that would meet them. They begin the world knaves, for prevention, while others onlyjend so after disappointment.

The greatest things and the most praise-worthy, that can be done for the public good, are not what require great parts, but great honesty! therefore for a king to make an amiable character, he needs only to be a man of common honesty, well advised.

No woman hates a man for being in love with her; but many a woman hates a man for being a friend to her.

The eye of a critic is often, like a microscope,