“Had Windham possessed discretion in debate, or Sheridan in conduct, they might have ruled their age.”

“It is a maxim, that those, to whom everybody allows the second place, have an undoubted title to the first.”

“All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.”

“If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.”

“If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.”

“Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods,Nettled and stung with pismires[nettles], when I hearOf this vile politician, Bolingbroke.”

“For Brutus is an honourable man;So are they all, all honourable men.”

“Policy sits above conscience.”

“I would with such perfection govern, sir,T'excel the golden age.”

“What's more to do,Which would be planted newly with the time,As calling home our exiled friends abroadThat fled the snares of watchful tyranny,Producing forth the cruel ministersOf this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent handsTook off her life; this, and what needful elseThat calls upon us, by the grace of GraceWe will perform in measure, time, and place.”

“The goof man, in dealing with his people, taxes them with luxury.”

“Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity.”

“When Caesar says, 'Do this', it is performed.”

“Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from the cur. There thou mightst behold the great image of authority-a dog's obeyed in office.”

“Let still woman take An elder than herself: so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart, For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner to be lost and warn, Than women's are.”

“The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base.”

“Blest are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger To sound what stop she please.”

“If you be King, why should not I succeed?”

“When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field, the next man will appear.”

“All his successors gone before him have done 't; and all his ancestors that come after him may.”