Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Don't speak evil of someone if you don't know for certain, and if you do know ask yourself, why am I telling it?
The true friend of truth and good loves them under all forms, but he loves them most under the most simple form.
There is a manner of forgiveness so divine that you are ready to embrace the offender for having called it forth.
To realize that you were mistaken, is just the acknowledgement , that you are wiser today than you were yesterday.
The less you can enjoy, the poorer, the scantier yourself - the more you can enjoy, the richer, the more vigorous.
The creditor whose appearance gladdens the heart of a debtor may hold his head in sunbeams and his foot on storms.
He, who cannot forgive a trespass of malice to his enemy, has never yet tasted the most sublime enjoyment of love.
True genius repeats itself forever, and never repeats itself--one ever varied sense beams novelty and unity on all.
There are no friends more inseparable than pride and hardness of heart, humility and love, falsehood and impudence.
Who is respectable when thinking himself alone and free from observation will be so before the eye of all the world.
He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool, dissembling hypocrite of whom you should beware.
As you treat your body, so your house, your domestics, your enemies, your friends - Dress is a table of your contents.
You may depend upon it that he is a good man whose intimate friends are all good, and whose enemies are decidedly bad.
He who, silent, loves to be with us - he who loves us in our silence - has touched one of the keys that ravish hearts.
His calumny is not only the greatest benefit a rogue can confer on us, but the only service he will perform for nothing.
The generous person is always just, and the just who is always generous may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven.
The most stormy ebullitions of passion, from blasphemy to murder, are less terrific than one single act of cool villainy.
He who has no taste for order, will be often wrong in his judgment, and seldom considerate or conscientious in his actions.
Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.
Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.
Mistrust the man who finds everything good, the man who finds everything evil and still more the man who is indifferent to everything.
Receive no satisfaction for premeditated impertinence - forget it, forgive it - but keep him inexorably at a distance who of∣fered it.
You may tell a man thou art a fiend, but not your nose wants blowing; to him alone who can bear a thing of that kind, you may tell all.
The more uniform a man's voice, step, manner of conversation, handwriting--the more quiet, uniform, settled, his actions, his character.
It is one of my favorite thoughts that God manifests Himself to men in all the wise, good, humble, generous, great, and magnanimous men.
Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it.
Modesty is silent when it would be improper to speak; the humble, without being called upon, never recollects to say anything of himself.
The discovery of truth, by slow progressive meditation, is wisdom. - Intuition of truth, not preceded by perceptible meditation, is genius.
He whom common, gross, or stale objects allure, and when obtained, content, is a vulgar being, incapable of greatness in thought or action.
As a man's salutations, so is the total of his character; in nothing do we lay ourselves so open as in our manner of meeting and salutation.
All belief that does not make us more happy, more free, more loving, more active, more calm, is, I fear, a mistaken and superstitious belief.
Depend on no man, on no friend but him who can depend on himself. He only who acts conscientiously toward himself, will act so toward others.
The quicker, the louder, the applause with which another tries to gain you over to his purpose - the bitterer his censure if he miss his aim.
A beautiful smile is to the female countenance what the sunbeam is to the landscape; it embellishes an inferior face and redeems an ugly one.
Take here the grand secret; if not of pleasing all, yet of displeasing none, and court mediocrity, avoid originality, and sacrifice to fashion.
What do I owe to my times, to my country, to my neighbors, to my friends? Such are the questions which a virtuous man ought often to ask himself.
Happy the heart to whom God has given enough strength and courage to suffer for Him, to find happiness in simplicity and the happiness of others.
He who freely praises what he means to purchase, and he who enumerates the faults of what he means to sell, may set up a partnership with honesty.
It is possible that a wise and good man may be prevailed on to game; but it is impossi∣ble that a professed gamester should be a wise and good man.
Who, under pressing temptations to lie, adheres to truth, nor to the profane betrays aught of a sacred trust, is near the summit of wisdom and virtue.
Who forces himself on others is to himself a load. Impetuous curiosity is empty and inconstant. Prying intrusion may be suspected of whatever is little.
He knows not how to speak who cannot be silent; still less how to act with vigour and decision. - Who hastens to the end is silent: loudness is impotence.
Mistrust the person who finds everything good, and the person who finds everything evil, and mistrust even more the person who is indifferent to everything.
The more unharmonious and inconsistent your objects of desire, the more inconsequent, inconstant, unquiet, the more ignoble, idiotical, and criminal yourself.
Three days of uninterrupted company in a vehicle will make you better acquainted with another, than one hour's conversation with him every day for three years.
Who in the same given time can produce more than others has vigor; who can produce more and better, has talents; who can produce what none else can, has genius.
Obstinacy is the strength of the weak. Firmness founded upon principle, upon the truth and right, order and law, duty and generosity, is the obstinacy of sages.
Man without religion is a diseased creature, who would persuade himself he is well and needs not a physician; but woman without religion is raging and monstrous.
Do not believe that a book is good, if in reading it thou dost not become more contented with thy existence, if it does not rouse up in thee most generous feelings.
He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers and ceases when he has no more to say is in possession of some of the best requisites of man