There ought to be a great Difference between the Memory and the Stomach; the last is to admit every thing, the former should have the Faculty of Rejecting.
It is a nice Mean between letting the Thought languish for want of Exercise, and tiring it by giving it too much.
A Man may dwell so long upon a Thought, that it may take him Prisoner.
The hardest thing in the World is to give the Thoughts due Liberty, and yet retain them in due Discipline.
They are Libertines that are apt to abuse Freedom, and do not well know how to bear Restraint.
A Man that excels in any one thing has a kind of arbitrary Power over all that hear him upon that Subject, and no Man’s Life is too short to know any one thing perfectly.
The modern Wit is rather to set Men out, than to make them of any Use.
Some Men have acted Courage who had it not; but no Man can act Wit, if Nature doth not teach him his Part. True Wit is always revenged upon any false Pretender that meddleth with it.
Wit is the only thing that Men are willing to think they can ever have enough of.
There is a happy Pitch of Ignorance that a Man of Sense might pray for.