Nothing, Says Longinus, Can Be Great, The

Good Nature, And Evenness Of Temper, Will Give You An Easie Companion For Life; Vertue And Good Sense, An Agreeable Friend; Love And Constancy, A Good Wife Or Husband. Where We Meet One Person With All These Accomplishments, We Find An Hundred Without Any One Of Them.

The World Is So Full Of Ill-nature That I Have Lampoons Sent Me By People Who Cannot Spell, And Satires Composed By Those Who Scarce Know How To Write.

Persons In Great Stations Have Seldom Their True Character Drawn Till Several Years After Their Death. Their Personal Friendships And Enmities Must Cease, And The Parties They Were Engaged In Be At An End, Before Their Faults Or Their Virtues Can Have Justice Done Them. When Writers Have The Least Opportunities Of Knowing The Truth, They Are In The Best Disposition To Tell It.

We Are Always Doing Something For Posterity, But I Would Fain See Posterity Do Something For Us.

Among The Writers Of Antiquity There Are None Who Instruct Us More Openly In The Manners Of Their Respective Times In Which They Lived Than Those Who Have Employed Themselves In Satire, Under Whatever Dress It May Appear.