1740s

Experience keeps a dear school, yet Fools will learn In no other.

1743

★ 5.5

When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.

1746

★ 5.5

Tart Words make no Friends: a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a Gallon of Vinegar.

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

1744

★ 5.5

Essay · Satire

Jonathan Swift

Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting · 1745

★ 5.5

Sermon · Religious literature

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.

Jonathan Edwards

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God · 1741

★ 5.3

Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.

Night Thoughts · 1745

★ 5.3

Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.

1746

★ 5.3

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of.

1746

★ 5.2

Any port in a storm.

John Cleland

1748

★ 4.5

In contriving any system of government, and fixing the several checks and controls of the constitution, every man ought to be supposed a knave, and to have no other end, in all his actions, than private interest.

There are a set of religious, or rather moral writers, who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.

Essays, Moral and Political · 1741

★ 4.4

Novel · Coming of age story · Picaresque

Henry Fielding

Tom Jones · 1749

★ 4.3

In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty.

1741

★ 3.9

The heart of man is made to reconcile contradictions.

1741

★ 3.9

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his Portion.

1744

★ 3.9

What you would seem to be, be really.

1744

★ 3.9

He who multiplies Riches multiplies Cares.

1744

★ 3.9

If you’d lose a troublesome Visitor, lend him money.

1744

★ 3.9

Many complain of their Memory, few of their Judgment.

1745

★ 3.9

The most exquisite Folly is made of Wisdom spun too fine.

1746

★ 3.9

The Sting of a Reproach is the Truth of it.

1746

★ 3.9

Custom, then, is the great guide of human life.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding · 1748

★ 3.9

Drink does not drown Care, but waters it and makes it grow faster.

1749

★ 3.9

If Passion drives, let Reason hold the Reins.

1749

★ 3.9

If evils come not, Then our fears are vain; And if they do, Fear but augments the pain.

1741

★ 3.8

How few there are who have courage enough to own their Faults, or resolution enough to mend them!

1743

★ 3.8

Avarice, the spur of industry, is so obstinate a passion, and works its way through so many real dangers and difficulties, that it is not likely to be scared by an imaginary danger, which is so small, that it scarcely admits of calculation.

1741

★ 3.7

The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding · 1748

★ 3.7

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding · 1748

★ 3.7

The greatest heroes that the world can know, To women their original must owe.

Mary Collier

1740

★ 3.6

Procrastination is the thief of time.

Night Thoughts · 1742

★ 3.6

A God all mercy, is a God unjust.

Whoever would lie usefully should lie seldom.

Night Thoughts · 1743

★ 3.6

Historical literature

Lord Hervey

1743

★ 3.6

Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.

Night Thoughts · 1742

★ 3.5

The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.

1746

★ 3.5

Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it for ever.

1748

★ 3.5

At thirty, Man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same.

Night Thoughts · 1742

★ 3.5

Those who travel heedlessly from place to place, observing only their distance from each other and attending only to their accommodation at the inn at night, set out fools, and will certainly return so.

Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permits.

1747

★ 3.5

Treatise · Political literature

Montesquieu

The Spirit of the Laws · 1748

★ 2.9

E’er you remark another’s sin, bid your own conscience look within.

1741

★ 2.2

At 20 years of age the will reigns; at 30 the wit; at 40 the judgment.

1741

★ 2.2

To err is human, to repent divine; to persist devilish.

1742

★ 2.2

‘Tis easier to prevent bad Habits than to break them.

1745

★ 2.2

Beware of little Expences: a small leak will sink a great Ship.

1745

★ 2.2

A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding · 1748

★ 2.2

The good or ill hap of a good or ill Life, is the good or ill choice of a good or ill Wife.

It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

1745

★ 2.1

Voltaire

Zadig · 1747

★ 2.0

The great advantage of the mathematical sciences above the moral consists in this, that the ideas of the former, being sensible, are always clear and determinate.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding · 1748

★ 2.0

Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer.

Night Thoughts · 1742

★ 1.9

Tir'd Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!

Night Thoughts · 1742

★ 1.9

Man wants but little; nor that little, long.

Night Thoughts · 1743

★ 1.9

An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

Fools are here below for our minor pleasures.

1746

★ 1.9

Play

Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset

1747

★ 1.9

Take the tone of the company, that you are in.

1747

★ 1.9

Do as you would be done by is the surest method that I know of pleasing.

1747

★ 1.9

What female heart can gold despise? What cat's averse to fish?

Thomas Gray

1748

★ 1.9

Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.

Thomas Gray

1747

★ 1.9

In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.