WednesdayFeb 11, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.
To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which if not a virtue, is the groundwork of a virtue.
Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence. His name, like the shuttlecock, must be beat backward and forward, or it falls to the ground.
I love the acquaintance of young people, because, in the first place, I don't like to think myself growing old. In the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then young men have more generous sentiments in every respect.
For we that live to please must please to live.
A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.
Adversity is the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free from admirers then.
The first years of man must make provision for the last.
Wine makes a man better pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.
A thousand years may elapse before there shall appear another man with a power of versification equal to that of Pope.
He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into the short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.
The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.
Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.
Johnson observed that he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney.
Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.
Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
A very unclubable man.
No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
Depend on it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.
Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.
He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.
A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.
The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.
Then with no throbs of fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way.
His death eclipsed the gayety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.
Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.
Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.
Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlbroughs eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires, a driv'ler and a show.
Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love! Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more; Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!
A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn.
It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Example is always more efficacious than precept.
Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.
How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The endearing elegance of female friendship.
A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.
Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having.
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.
Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend.
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 friendships in constant repair.
Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.
From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend, Path, motive, guide, original, and end.
This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow.
That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. A small drinking glass and a large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small.
Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
Men hate more steadily than they love.
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
On Sir Joshua Reynoldss observing that the real character of a man was found out by his amusements. Yes, Sir, no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?
Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies! Life 's a short summer, man a flower; He diesalas! how soon he dies!
I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
As the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of intelligence must direct the man of labor.
I have found men more kind than I expected and less just.
Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
Language is the dress of thought; every time you talk your mind is on parade.
Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
No two men can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe.
We took tea, by Boswell's desire; and I eat one bun, I think, that I might not be seen to fast ostentatiously. When I find that so much of my life has stolen unprofitably away, and that I can descry by retrospection scarcely a few single days properly and vigorously employed, why do I yet try to resolve again? I try, because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal. I try, in humble hope of the help of God.
No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
'I fly from pleasure,' said the prince, 'because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.'
I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.
As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly.
That saw the manners in the face.
Sir, I have found you an argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
No mind is much employed upon the present: recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
He who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.
I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.
In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to die.
Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.
The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me.
Learn that the present hour alone is mans.
Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind, from China to Peru.
Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage.
It is worth a thousand pounds a year to have the habit of looking on the bright side of things.
For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.
Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take care of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.
Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.
Pity is not natural to man. Children and savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; but we have not pity unless we wish to relieve him.
When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.
Was ever poet so trusted before?
Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is.
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable and others extremely difficult.
This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confess'd, Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd.
He who praises everybody praises nobody.
Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself.
Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of human nature, as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice?
How small of all that human hearts endure That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place ensigned Our own felicity we make or find.
I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice.
Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
What is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value to its scarcity.
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.
The noblest prospect which a Scotch man ever sees is the high-road that leads him to England.
Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger at his death.
I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
Few men survey themselves with such severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Truth, Sir, is a cow, which will yield such people [skeptics] no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away.
Smoking is a shocking thing blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes and noses, and having the same thing done to us.
Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail.
Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an access of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature. Of Thomas Sheridan (17191788), actor, lecturer, and author:
Lichfield, England. Swallows certainly sleep all winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lye in the bed of a river.
And sure th' Eternal Master found His single talent well employ'd.
I am glad that he thanks God for anything.
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
The great source of pleasure is variety.
If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.
One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among Lords.
Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.
Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.
When any fit of anxiety or gloominess or perversion of the mind lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints but exert your whole care to hide it. By endeavoring to hide it, you will drive it away.
There is little peace or comfort in life if we are always anxious as to future events. He that worries himself with the dread of possible contingencies will never be at rest.
Wretched un-idea'd girls.
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
Read over your compositions and, when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Sir, no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
A man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Much may be made of a Scotsman if he be caught young.
It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.
Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Among the calamities of war may be numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.
When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.
I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian.
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all thingsthe power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit,and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.
There are charms made only for distant admiration.
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history.
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.
Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as a source of it.
To do nothing is in everyone's power.
To improve the golden moment of opportunity and catch the good that is within our reach is the great art of life.
Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves.
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
There is nothing too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.
Whatever you have spend less.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
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