(From the fourth edition of the work of that title.)
The southern wits are like cucumbers, which are commonly all good in their kind; but at best are an insipid fruit: while the northern geniuses are like melons, of which not one in fifty is good; but when it is so, it is an exquisite relish.—Berkeley.
There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter.—Cowley.
Fear sometimes adds wings to the heels, and sometimes nails them to the ground, and fetters them from moving.—Montaigne.
When I reflect, as I frequently do, upon the felicity I have enjoyed, I sometimes say to myself, that, were the offer made true, I would engage to run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life. All I would ask, should be the privilege of an author, to correct in a second edition, certain errors of the first.—Franklin's Life.
I do not call him a poet that writes for his own diversion, any more than that gentleman a fiddler who amuses himself with a violin.—Swift.