Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Heroes are a mischievous race.
A brave mind is always impregnable.
Belief gets in the way of learning.
The road to heaven lies as near by water as by land.
Everyone has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases.
I used to walk to school with my nose buried in a book.
Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age.
The abuse of a thing is no argument against the use of it.
Patient waiting is often the highest way of doing God's will.
People's opinions of themselves are legible in their countenances.
People who have nothing to do are quickly tired of their own company.
People that have nothing to do are quickly tired of their own company.
Rhetoric is nothing but reason well dressed and argument put in order.
True courage is a result of reasoning. A brave mind is always impregnable.
True courage is the result of reasoning. A brave mind is always impregnable.
Envy lies between two beings equal in nature though unequal in circumstances.
Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves.
We must not let go manifest truths because we cannot answer all questions about them.
A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading.
Knowledge is the consequence of time, and multitude of days are fittest to teach wisdom.
Dangerous principles impose upon our understanding, emasculate our spirits, and spoil our temper.
It is a difficult task to talk to the purpose, and to put life and perspicuity into our discourse.
There are few things reason can discover with so much certainty and ease as its own insufficiency.
Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.
Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance and make a seeming difficulty gives way.
Without discretion, people may be overlaid with unreasonable affection, and choked with too much nourishment.
Envy, like a cold prison, benumbs and stupefies; and, conscious of its own impotence, folds its arms in despair.
He that would be a master must draw from the life as well as copy from originals, and join theory and experience together.
Learning gives us a fuller conviction of the imperfections of our nature; which one would think, might dispose us to modesty.
A man by tumbling his thoughts, and forming them into expressions, gives them a new fermentation, which works them into a finer body.
Idleness is an inlet to disorder, and makes way for licentiousness. People who have nothing to do are quickly tired of their own company.
Thoughts take up no room. When they are right, they afford a portable pleasure, which one may travel with, without any trouble or encumbrance.
Passing too eagerly upon a provocation loses the guard and lays open the body; calmness and leisure and deliberation do the business much better.
Confidence, as opposed, to modesty and distinguished from decent assurance, proceeds from self-opinion, and is occasioned by ignorance and flattery.
Goodness is generous and diffusive; it is largeness of mind, and sweetness of temper,--balsam in the blood, and justice sublimated to a richer spirit.
The end of pleasure is to support the offices of life, to relieve the fatigues of business, to reward a regular action, and to encourage the continuance.
I would not despair unless I knew the irrevocable decree was passed; saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by neces-sity.
Conscience and covetousness are never to be reconciled; like fire and water they always destroy each other, according to the predominancy of the element.
In civilized life, where the happiness and indeed almost the existence of man, depends on the opinion of his fellow men. He is constantly acting a studied part.
Vanity is a strong temptation to lying; it makes people magnify their merit, over flourish their family, and tell strange stories of their interest and acquaintance.
Avoid all affectation and singularity. What is according to nature is best, and what is contrary to it is always distasteful. Nothing is graceful that is not our own.
As the language of the face is universal, so 'tis very comprehensive; no laconism can reach it: 'Tis the short hand of the mind, and crowds a great deal in a little room
Remorse of conscience is like an old wound; a man is in no condition to fight under such circumstances. The pain abates his vigor and takes up too much of his attention.
What can be more honorable than to have courage enough to execute the commands of reason and conscience,--to maintain the dignity of our nature, and the station assigned us?
Flattery is an ensnaring quality, and leaves a very dangerous impression. It swells a man's imagination, entertains his vanity, and drives him to a doting upon his own person.
Truth is the band of union and the basis of human happiness. Without this virtue there is no reliance upon language, no confidence in friendship, no security in promises and oaths.
To believe a business impossible is the way to make it so. How many feasible projects have miscarried through despondency, and been strangled in their birth by a cowardly imagination.
Envy is of all others the most ungratifying and disconsolate passion. There is power for ambition, pleasure for luxury, and pelf even for covetousness; but envy gets no reward but vexation.
By reading a man does, as it were, antedate his life, and make himself contemporary with the ages past; and this way of running up beyond one's nativity is better than Plato's pre-existence.
Self-conceit is a weighty quality, and will sometimes bring down the scale when there is nothing else in it. It magnifies a fault beyond proportion, and swells every omission into an outrage.