Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Where beams of imagination play, the memory's soft figures melt away.
Fickle Fortune reigns, and, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.
When much dispute has past, we find our tenets just the same as last.
I am satisfied to trifle away my time, rather than let it stick by me.
To balance Fortune by a just expense, Join with Economy, Magnificence.
The difference is too nice - Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.
Party-spirit at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.
A disputant no more cares for the truth than the sportsman for the hare.
There still remains to mortify a wit The many-headed monster of the pit.
Oft in dreams invention we bestow to change a flounce or add a furbelow.
The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago.
Religion blushing, veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires.
Ask you what provocation I have had? The strong antipathy of good to bad.
Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.
And bear about the mockery of woe To midnight dances and the public show.
Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.
One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.
Wine works the heart up, wakes the wit, There is no cure 'gainst age but it
Old politicians chew on wisdom past, And totter on in business to the last.
Consult the genius of the place, that paints as you plant, and as you work.
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me.
Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
At every trifle take offense, that always shows great pride or little sense.
But just disease to luxury succeeds, And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds.
Satire or sense, alas! Can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, And liquid amber drop from every thorn.
Search then the ruling passion: This clue, once found, unravels all the rest.
No writing is good that does not tend to better mankind in some way or other.
A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practice it.
Genuine religion is not so much a matter of feeling as a matter of principle.
But thousands die without or this or that, Die, and endow a college or a cat.
Be niggards of advice on no pretense; For the worst avarice is that of sense.
In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fixed, 'tis fixed as in a frost.
But to the world no bugbear is so great, As want of figure and a small estate.
Two purposes in human nature rule. Self- love to urge, and reason to restrain.
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate and rot.
Of all affliction taught a lover yet, 'Tis true the hardest science to forget.
Like Cato, give his little senate laws, and sit attentive to his own applause.
The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.
Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet.
Our judgments, like our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own
We may see the small value God has for riches, by the people he gives them to.
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; But shall the dignity of vice be lost?
Tis all in vain to keep a constant pother About one vice and fall into another.
O let us still the secret joy partake, To follow virtue even for virtue's sake.
Never elated while one man's oppress'd; Never dejected while another's blessed.
Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
Good-nature and good-sense must ever join; To err is human, to forgive, divine.
True disputants are like true sportsmen: their whole delight is in the pursuit.
Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn, Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn.