What does this quote mean?

“True wit is nature to advantage dress’d; what oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.”

Strong expression often succeeds not by inventing an alien idea but by giving memorable form to something many people already sensed.

Source note: Part II of An Essay on Criticism; Pope defines wit through clear expression of recognizable truth.

“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.”

Thoreau treats reading as potentially transformative: a book can mark a genuine before-and-after point when it gives language to questions a reader has struggled to express.

Source note: Walden, chapter “Reading,” in the discussion of books that can reveal new possibilities and answer enduring questions.

“Fish and visitors stink in three days.”

Hospitality has limits, and the humor works by comparing an overlong visit with something that naturally becomes unpleasant over time.

Source note: Poor Richard’s Almanack; a comic maxim about hospitality, boundaries, and overstaying a welcome.

“I like good strong words that mean something.”

Clear language is valued for carrying substance instead of decoration, especially when words are meant to guide action or understanding.

Source note: Little Women; the represented public-domain text places the sailing metaphor inside the novel’s broader language of learning through difficulty.

“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,”

The line describes a subtle form of hostility in which apparent approval is calibrated to diminish rather than support its target.

Source note: Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot; part of Pope’s satirical portrait of Addison/“Atticus,” so it is polemical literary characterization rather than neutral biography.

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

The joke exaggerates how difficult secrecy becomes once information is shared, making discretion the safest form of confidentiality.

Source note: Poor Richard’s Almanack; one of Franklin’s compact maxims about secrecy and human behavior.