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A position of dignity is more easily improved upon than acquired.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Pastoral Dialogue (l. 7)
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A sly piece of good luck, which nobody knows of is delightful.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Pastoral Dialogue (l. 7)
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I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats
and dogs.
Topic: Rain
Source: Polite Conversation (dialogue II)
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We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another.
Topic: Religion
Source: None
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We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Topic: Religion / Beliefs
Source: None
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Convey a libel in a frown.
And wink a reputation down!
Topic: Reputation
Source: Journal of a Modern Lady (l. 185)
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A prince, the moment he is crown'd,
Inherits every virtue sound,
As emblems of the sovereign power,
Like other baubles in the Tower:
Is generous, valiant, just, and wise,
And so continues till he dies.
Topic: Royalty
Source: On Poetry (l. 191)
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What some invent the rest enlarge.
Topic: Rumor
Source: Journal of a Modern Lady
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The rolling fictions grow in strength and size,
Each author adding to the former lies.
Topic: Rumor
Source: Tr. of Ovid--Examiner (no. 15)
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It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.
Topic: Sarcasm
Source: None
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Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally
discover everybody's face but their own.
Topic: Satire
Source: The Battle of the Books
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Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.
Topic: Sensuality
Source: None
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I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
Topic: Shame
Source: None
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The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.
Topic: Slander
Source: None
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Instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our
hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two
noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.
Topic: Sweetness
Source: Battle of the Books, fable on the merits of the bee (the ancients) and the spider (the moderns)
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May you live all the days of your life.
Topic: Toasts
Source: Polite Conversation (dialogue II)
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The tucked-up sempstress walks hasty strides,
While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides.
Topic: Umbrellas
Source: Description of a City Shower
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Vision: the art of seeing things invisible.
Topic: Vision
Source: None
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The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
Topic: Want
Source: None
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If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would
not have given them to such a scoundrel.
Topic: Wealth
Source: Letter to Miss Vanhomrigh
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I've often wished that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end,
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land, set out to plant a wood.
Topic: Wishes
Source: Imitation of Horace (bk. II, satire 6)
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It is a maxim, that those to whom everybody allows the second
place have an undoubted title to the first.
Topic: Worth
Source: Tale of a Tub--Dedication
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