ThursdayMar 12, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.
His enemies might have said before that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.
Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.
My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon.
In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.
Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.
No one minds what Jeffrey says: . . it is not more than a week ago that I heard him speak disrespectfully of the equator.
If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes,some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong,and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other.
As the French say, there are three sexes,men, women, and clergymen.
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea!
The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death.
He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation perfectly delightful.
You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence.
When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one to a fellow creature.
It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.
He deserves to be preached to death by wild curates.
Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.
Looked as if she had walked straight out of the ark.
Speaking of justice: Truth is its handmaid, freedom is its child, peace is its companion, safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its train; it is the brightest emanation from the Gospel; it is the attribute of God.
To take Macaulay out of literature and society and put him in the House of Commons, is like taking the chief physician out of London during a pestilence.
Macaulay is like a book in breeches.... He has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.
We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal.
That knuckle-end of England,that land of Calvin, oat-cakes, and sulphur.
To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can.
It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.
Men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, to any pressure of taxation, however light.
I have the most perfect confidence in your indiscretion.
Not body enough to cover his mind decently with; his intellect is improperly exposed.
Magnificent spectacle of human happiness.
My idea of heaven is eating pate de foie gras to the sound of trumpets.
'Heat, ma'am!' I said; 'it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.'
To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness.
Avoid shame, but do not seek glory,nothing so expensive as glory.
To love and be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
Life is fortified by many friendships
Ah, you flavour everything; you are the vanilla of society.
No enjoyment, however inconsiderable, is confined to the present moment. A man is the happier for life from having made once an agreeable tour, or lived for any length of time with pleasant people, or enjoyed any considerable interval of innocent pleasure.
He has spent all his life in letting down empty buckets into empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again.
Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done his best.
Soup and fish explain half the emotions in life.
It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can do only a little. Do what you can.
Serenely full, the epicure would say, Fate cannot harm me; I have dined to-day.
Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam-engine in trousers.
Life is a difficulty in the country, and it requires a good deal of forethought to steer the ship, when you are twelve miles from a lemon.
No furniture is as charming as books, even if you never open them.
In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm [at Sidmouth], Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused; Mrs. Partington's spirit was up. But I need not tell you that the contest was unequal; the Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington.
The Smiths never had any arms, and have invariably sealed their letters with their thumbs.
In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book, or goes to an American play, or looks at an American picture or statue?
Madam, I have been looking for a person that dislikes gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.
Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.
Of Scotland: That knuckle-end of England - that land of Calvin, oat-cakes, and sulphur.
Macaulay has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.
There are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen.
Whatever the will commands, the whole man must do; the empire of the will over all the faculties being absolutely over-ruling and despotic.
Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.
He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.
Deserves to be preached to death by wild curates.
I am convinced digestion is the great secret of life.
Where etiquette prevents me from doing things disagreeable to myself, I am a perfect martinet.
Death must be distinguished from dying, with which it is often confused.
I am just going to pray for you at St. Paul's, but with no very lively hope of success.
I never read a book before reviewing it: it prejudices a man so.
The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants, and the fatuity of idiots.
Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
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