Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Seeking is not always the way to find.
Every wise man lives in an observatory.
Life is the hyphen between matter and spirit.
Do, and have done. The former is far the easiest.
Curiosity is little more than another name for Hope.
Few take advice, or physic, without wry faces at it.
To know the hight [sic] of a mountain, one must climb it.
It is natural that affluence should be followed by influence.
A lawyer's brief will be brief, before a freethinker thinks freely.
Poetry is to philosophy what the Sabbath is to the rest of the week.
Philosophy is the love of wisdom: Christianity is the wisdom of love.
Friendship is Love with jewels on, but without either flowers or veil.
I like the smell of a dunged field, and the tumult of a popular election.
A youth's love is the more passionate; virgin love is the more idolatrous.
Why do critics make such an outcry against tragicomedies? is not life one?
Few are aware that they want any thing, except pounds schillings and pence.
The feeling is often the deeper truth, the opinion the more superficial one.
Many actions, like the Rhone, have two sources,--one pure, the other impure.
The most mischievous liars are those who keep sliding on the verge of truth.
We like slipping, but not falling; our real anxiety is to be tempted enough.
I could hardly feel much confidence in a man who had never been imposed upon.
There is a glare about worldly success which is very apt to dazzle men's eyes.
One saves oneself much pain, by taking pains; much trouble, by taking trouble.
Many a man's vices have at first been nothing worse than good qualities run wild.
In a mist the heights can for the most part see each other; but the valleys cannot.
When will talkers refrain from evil speaking: when listeners refrain from evil-hearing.
Science sees signs; Poetry, the thing signified. Co-author with his brother Julius Hare.
Who is fit to govern others? He who governs himself. You might as well have said: nobody.
People cannot go wrong, if you don't let them. They cannot go right, unless you let them.
The poet sees things as they look. Is this having a faculty the less? or a sense the more?
True modesty does not consist in an ignorance of our merits, but in a due estimate of them.
How idle it is to call certain things God-sends! as if there was anything else in the world.
The praises of others may be of use in teaching us, not what we are, but what we ought to be.
Much of this world's wisdom is still acquired by necromancy,--by consulting the oracular dead.
I was surprised just now at seeing a cobweb around a knocker; for it was not on the door of heaven.
How deeply rooted must unbelief be in our hearts when we are surprised to find our prayers answered.
Many men spend their lives in gazing at their own shadows, and so dwindle away into shadows thereof.
The mind is like a trunk: if well-packed, it holds almost every thing; if ill-packed, next to nothing.
Excessive indulgence to others, especially to children is in fact only self-indulgence under an alias.
There are men whom you will never dislodge from an opinion, except by taking possession of it yourself.
When we skim along the surface of history we see little but the rough barren rocks that rise out of it.
How few are our real wants! and how easy is it to satisfy them! Our imaginary ones are boundless and insatiable.
Philosophy cannot raise the commonalty up to her level: so, if she is to become popular, she must sink to theirs.
We look to our last sickness for repentance, unmindful that it is during a recovery men repent, not during a sickness.
Nobody who is afraid of laughing, and heartily too, at his friend, can be said to have a true and thorough love for him.
Some men so dislike the dust kicked up by the generation they belong to, that, being unable to pass, they lag behind it.
A faith that sets bounds to itself, that will believe so much and no more, that will trust thus far and no further, is none.
Is bread the better for kneading? so is the heart. Knead it then by spiritual exercises; or God must knead it by afflictions.
Mythology is not religion. It may rather be regarded as the ancient substitute, the poetical counterpart, for dogmatic theology.
Some minds are made of blotting-paper: you can write nothing on them distinctly. They swallow the ink, and you find a large spot.