The Best Taxes Are Such As Are

Were A Man, Whom I Know To Be Honest And Opulent, And With Whom I Live In Intimate Friendship, To Come Into My House, Where I Am Surrounded With My Servants, I Rest Assured, That He Is Not To Stab Me Before He Leaves It, In Order To Rob Me Of My Silver Standish; And I No More Suspect This Event, Than The Falling Of The House Itself Which Is New, And Solidly Built And Founded.--but He May Have Been Seized With A Sudden And Unknown Frenzy.--so May A Sudden Earthquake Arise, And Shake And Tumble My House About My Ears.

It Is A Great Mortification To The Vanity Of Man, That His Utmost Art And Industry Can Never Equal The Meanest Of Nature's Productions, Either For Beauty Or Value. Art Is Only The Under-workman, And Is Employed To Give A Few Strokes Of Embellishment To Those Pieces, Which Come From The Hand Of The Master.

Though Men Of Delicate Taste Be Rare, They Are Easily To Be Distinguished In Society By The Soundness Of Their Understanding, And The Superiority Of Their Faculties Above The Rest Of Mankind.

We Learn The Influence Of Our Will From Experience Alone. And Experience Only Teaches Us, How One Event Constantly Follows Another; Without Instructing Us In The Secret Connexion, Which Binds Them Together, And Renders Them Inseparable.

The Life Of Man Is Of No Greater Importance To The Universe Than That Of An Oyster.