SaturdayJan 31, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.
The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are the more leisure we have.
If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
Violence ever defeats its own ends. Where you cannot drive you can always persuade. A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.
Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth more than ruin more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers.
We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit.
The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.
We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them.
The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in mind.
The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.
There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body.
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they might have been.
Human life may be regarded as a succession of frontispieces. The way to be satisfied is never to look back.
He is a man of capacity who possesses considerable intellectual riches: while he is a man of genius who finds out a vein of new ore. Originality is the seeing nature differently from others, and yet as it is in itself. It is not singularity or affectation, but the discovery of new and valuable truth. All the world do not see the whole meaning of any object they have been looking at. Habit blinds them to some things: shortsightedness to others. Every mind is not a gauge and measure of truth. Nature has her surface and her dark recesses. She is deep, obscure, and infinite. It is only minds on whom she makes her fullest impressions that can penetrate her shrine or unveil her Holy of Holies. It is only those whom she has filled with her spirit that have the boldness or the power to reveal her mysteries to others.
The best way to procure insults is to submit to them.
The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals, and have no hope of rising in their own esteem but by lowering their neighbors.
When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.
No really great man ever thought himself so.
The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.
Well Ive had a happy life.
So I have loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything.
The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously; and those who have produced immortal works, have done so without knowing how or why. The greatest power operates unseen.
The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of great men.
Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.
We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.
Gallantry to women the sure road to their favor is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it.
Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours march do dinnerand then to thinking!
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.
The most violent friendships soonest wear themselves out.
The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of; the last he does not concern himself about.
There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness And decision of character. I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it.
We pamper little grief's into great ones, And bear great ones as well as we can.
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.
I should like to spend the whole of my life in traveling Abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend Afterwards at home.
Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it.
The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires.
Refinement creates beauty everywhere. It is the grossness of the spectator that discovers anything like grossness in the object.
I am always afraid of a fool; one cannot be sure he is not a knave.
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck by the difference Between what things are and what they might have been.
Those who complain of the shortness of life, let it slide By them without wishing to seize and make the most of its golden moments.
Those who can command themselves command others.
Envy is the deformed and distorted offspring of egotism; And when we reflect on the strange and disproportioned character of the parent, we cannot wonder at the perversity and waywardness of the child.
For every evil under the sun, There is a remedy, or there is none; If there be one, try and find it, If there is none, never mind it.
Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
To be happy, we must be true to nature and carry our age Along with us.
Travel is the perfect liberty to think, feel, do just as one pleases.
Words are the only things that last forever.
Envy is littleness of soul.
Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, And discovering other people's weaknesses.
Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room.
Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly overvalued by others.
Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.
Envy, among other ingredients, has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good fortune.
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