Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!

Should the whole frame of nature round him break In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world.

Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful

There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.

Authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes; as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding-places in a voluminous writer.

We travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it