Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Our supreme governors, the mob.
This world is a comedy, not Life.
Mystery is the wisdom of blockheads.
It is charming to totter into vogue.
Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold.
I can forgive injuries, but never benefits.
In science, mistakes always precede the truth
The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.
I have known men of valor cowards to their wives.
Fashion is fortunately no law but to its devotees.
Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.
Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories
Life is a farce, and should not end with a mourning scene.
Posterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors.
It was easier to conquer it than to know what to do with it.
Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!
Lawyers and rogues are vermin not easily rooted out of a rich soil.
Let the French but have England, and they won't want to conquer it.
Had I children, my utmost endeavors would be to make them musicians.
Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.
We often repent of our first thoughts, and scarce ever of our second.
Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.
The Methodists love your big sinners, as proper subjects to work upon.
This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
To act with common sense according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know.
The curse of modern times is, that almost everything does create controversy.
Exercise is the worst thing in the world and as bad an invention as gunpowder.
History is a romance that is believed; romance, a history that is not believed.
[The] taste [of the French] is too timid to be true taste--or is but half taste.
When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.
Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.
Without grace no book can live, and with it the poorest may have its life prolonged.
Ponder, your comedies are woeful chaff: Write tragedies, when you would make us laugh.
One of the greatest geniuses that ever existed, Shakespeare, undoubtedly wanted taste.
Letters to absence can a voice impart, And lend a tongue when distance gags the heart.
Men are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.
In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.
A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not mis-become a monarch.
The way to ensure summer in England is to have it framed and glazed in a comfortable room.
[French] authors are more afraid of offending delicacy and rules, than ambitious of sublimity.
By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses; one misses more nonsense than sense.
Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.
Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if the angels have any fun in them, how we must divert them!
I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company.
The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.
The best sun we have is made of Newcastle coal, and I am determined never to reckon upon any other.
It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity; because impossible to divest one's self of self-love.
It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never puts dots over her I s, to save ink.
The whole [Scotch] nation hitherto has been void of wit and humour, and even incapable of relishing it.
Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.