Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
A man cannot paint portraits till he has seen faces.
Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites.
We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.
Cheerfulness is an offshoot of goodness and of wisdom.
The body of a sensualist is the coffin of a dead soul.
Economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.
Successful minds work like a gimlet--to a single point.
He half retrieves a defeat who yields to it gracefully.
It is the nature of thought to find its way into action.
The greatest happiness comes from the greatest activity.
There are ceremonious bows that repel one like a cudgel.
Passion doesn't look beyond the moment of its existence.
Words, like cannon balls, should go direct to their mark.
The less the difference, the greater the quarrel over it.
The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it.
Men, like musical instruments, seem made to be played upon.
Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.
Melancholy sees the worst of things...[rather than the best]
Wit is better as a seasoning than as a whole dish by itself.
Better freedom with a crust, than slavery with every luxury.
Too much society makes a man frivolous; too little, a savage.
The busiest of living agents are certain dead men's thoughts.
Talk less about the years to come, Live, love labor more today.
Dishonesty is a forsaking of permanent for temporary advantages.
Wine is a treacherous friend who you must always be on guard for.
We absolve a friend from gratitude when we remind him of a favor.
Partial culture runs to the ornate, extreme culture to simplicity.
Kindred weaknesses induce friendships as often as kindred virtues.
Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.
Sorrow is never more sorrowful than when it jests at its own misery.
Genuine religion is matter of feeling rather than matter of opinion.
Whether one talks well depends very much upon whom he has to talk to.
Women seldom forfeit their claims to respect to men whom they respect.
Hard workers are usually honest; industry lifts them above temptation.
It is in vain that he seeks dominion abroad, who is not kingly at home.
The knowledge beyond all other knowledge is the knowledge how to excuse.
Excessive sensibility is only another name for morbid self-consciousness.
Next to being witty, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit.
It is some compensation for great evils, that they enforce great lessons.
We take life too seriously: the office of wit is to correct this tendency.
Galileo called doubt the father of invention; it is certainly the pioneer.
We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature hath set none.
An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.
Successful love takes a load off our hearts, and puts it upon our shoulders.
It is our relation to circumstances that determines their influence upon us.
The loss of a beloved connection awakens an interest in Heaven before unfelt.
The very cunning conceal their cunning; the indifferently shrewd boast of it.
Genius makes its observations in short-hand; talent writes them out at length.
Excellence in art is largely the result of attention to minutiae, and--prayer.
Rejecting the miracles of Christ, we still have the miracle of Christ Himself.