What! Would he be greater than Sir John? [ Proverb ]

There is, sir, a critical minute in
Every man's wooing, when his mistress may
Be won, which if he carelessly neglect
To prosecute, he may wait long enough
Before he gain the like opportunity. [ Marmion ]

Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily. [ William Shakespeare ]

That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack, when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in a storm. [ William Shakespeare ]

For thoughts are so great - aren't they, sir?
They seem to lie upon us like a deep flood. [ George Eliot ]

What signifies sadness, sir; a man grows lean on it. [ Mackenzie ]

Two Sir Positives can scarce meet without a skirmish. [ Proverb ]

I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear. [ William Shakespeare ]

An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not. [ William Shakespeare ]

I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs. [ Swift ]

He will lie, sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool. [ William Shakespeare ]

Ay, sir, to be honest as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of two thousand. [ William Shakespeare, Hamlet ]

Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. [ Samuel Johnson ]

Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog standing on his hinder legs. It is not done well, but you wonder to see it done at all. [ Johnson ]

Sir Amyas Pawlet, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, was wont to say, Stay awhile, that we may make an end the sooner. [ Bacon ]

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair. [ Johnson ]

Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? Ay Sir! And the creature run from the cur? There thou might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office. [ William Shakespeare ]

Sir Francis Bacon observed that a well-written book, compared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses' serpent, that immediately swallowed up and devoured those of the Egyptians. [ Addison ]

Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three years before Evelina appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of sober fathers and husbands when he pronounced the circulating library an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge. [ Macaulay ]

As to pay, sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress that as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept this arduous employment at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it. [ George Washington ]

I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first place, I do not like to think myself growing old. In the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then, sir, young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments in every respect. [ Dr. Johnson ]

Morals are of inestimable value, for every man is born crammed with sin microbes, and the only thing that can extirpate these sin microbes is morals. Now you take a sterilized Christian - I mean, you take the sterilized Christian, for there's only one. Dear sir, I wish you wouldn't look at me like that. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]

Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he boasted, The less you speak of your greatness, the more I shall think of it. Mirrors are the accompaniments of dandies, not heroes. The men of history were not perpetually looking in the glass to make sure of their own size. Absorbed in their work they did it, and did it so well that the wondering world saw them to be great, and labeled them accordingly. [ Rev. S. Coley ]

Two things a master commits to his servant's care - the child and the child's clothes. It will be a poor excuse for the servant to say, at his master's return, Sir, here are all the child's clothes, neat and clean, but the child is lost. Much so of the account that many will give to God of their souls and bodies at the great day. Lord, here is my body; I am very grateful for it; I neglected nothing that belonged to its contents and welfare; but as for my soul, that is lost and cast away forever. I took little care and thought about it. [ John Flavel ]

I smoke in bed until I have to go to sleep; I wake up in the night, sometimes once, sometimes twice; sometimes three times, and I never waste any of these opportunities to smoke. This habit is so old and dear and precious to me that I would feel as you, sir, would feel if you should lose the only moral you've got - meaning the chairman - if you've got one: I am making no charges: I will grant, here, that I have stopped smoking now and then, for a few months at a time, but it was not on principle, it was only to show off; it was to pulverize those critics who said I was a slave to my habits and couldn't break my bonds. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]