The Court may be said to be a Company of well-bred fashionable Beggars.
At Court, if a Man hath too much Pride to be a Creature, he had better stay at home: A Man who will rise at Court must begin, by creeping upon All-four: A Place at Court, like a Place in Heaven, is to be got by being much upon one’s Knees.
There are hardly two Creatures of a more differing Species than the same Man, when he is pretending to a Place, and when he is in Possession of it.
Mens Industry is spent in receiving the Rents of a Place, there is little left for discharging the Duty of it.
Some Places have such a corrupting Influence upon the Man, that it is a supernatural thing to resist it.
Some Places lye so fair to entertain Corruption, that it looketh like renouncing a due Perquisite, not to go into it.
If a getting Fool would keep out of Business, he would grow richer in a Court than a Man of Sense.
One would wonder that in a Court where there is so little Kindness, there should be so much whispering.
Men must brag of kind Letters from Court, at the same time that they do not believe one Word of them.
Men at Court think so much of their own Cunning, that they forget other Mens.