“Lest men suspect your tale untrue,
Keep probability in view.”
Fable, The Painter who pleased Nobody and Everybody
Fables (1727)
“Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!”
Lucy, Act II, sc. xiii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)
“So comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er,—
The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.”
The What d' ye call it (1715). Comparable to: "The time of paying a shot in a tavern among good fellows, or Pantagruelists, is still called in France a 'quart d'heure de Rabelais,'—that is, Rabelais's quarter of an hour, when a man is uneasy or melancholy", Life of Rabelais (Bohn's edition), p. 13
“O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed,
By keeping men off, you keep them on.”
Act I, sc. viii, air 9
The Beggar's Opera (1728)
Fable XVII, "The Shepherd's Dog and the Wolf"
Fables (1727)