Truth is the most powerful thing in the world, since even fiction…

We may have an excellent Ear in Musick, without being able to perform in any kind. We may judg well of Poetry, without being Poets, or possessing the least of a Poetick Vein: But we can have no tolerable Notion of Goodness, without being …

Gravity is of the very Essence of Imposture. It does not only make us mistake other Things, but is apt perpetually almost to mistake it-self.

'Twas the saying of [Georgias Leontinus apud Arist. Rhetor. lib. 3. cap. 18… which the Translator renders, Seria Risu, Risum Seriis discutere] an ancient sage that humour was the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour. For a subject …

Through certain humors or passions, and from temper merely, a man may be completely miserable, let his outward circumstances be ever so fortunate.

How comes it to pass then, that we appear such Cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the Test of Ridicule?

Truth, 'tis suppos'd, may bear all Lights: and one of those principal Lights or natural Mediums, by which Things are to be view'd, in order to a thorow Recognition, is Ridicule it-self, or that Manner of Proof by which we discern whatever …