Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
An ancient father says that a dog we know is better company than a man whose language we do not understand.
I turn my gaze inward. I fix it there and keep it busy. I look inside myself. I continually observe myself.
Thus we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions, and judge things by reason's way, not by popular say.
It is not a mind, it is not a body that we educate, but it is a man, and we must not make two parts of him.
I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.
I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.
In my youth I studied for ostentation; later, a little to gain wisdom; now, for recreation; never for gain.
The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.
It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man.
I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still more of my unfinished garden.
Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome.
A liar would be brave toward God, while he is a coward toward men; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.
Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.
Fear sometimes adds wings to the heels, and sometimes nails them to the ground, and fetters them from moving.
Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.
The honor we receive from those that fear us, is not honor; those respects are paid to royalty and not to me.
We judge a horse not only by its pace on a racecourse, but also by its walk, nay, when resting in its stable.
We may so seize on virtue, that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may become vicious.
A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian!
I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
Necessity reconciles and brings men together; and this accidental connection afterward forms itself into laws.
Saying is one thing and doing is another; we are to consider the sermon and the preacher distinctly and apart.
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.
I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
We are never present with, but always beyond ourselves; fear, desire, hope, still push us on toward the future.
I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate.
It is not without good reason, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.
[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.
To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity!
One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love.
Obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in, and best becoming, a mean and illiterate soul.
In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.
Truth and reason are common to everyone, and are no more his who spake them first than his who speaks them after.
Diogenes was asked what wine he liked best; and he answered as I would have done when he said, "Somebody else's".
We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.
The world is but a school of inquisition; it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.
For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave; in bed, beauty before goodness.
There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy.
Why dost thou complain of this world? It detains thee not; thy own cowardice is the cause, if thou livest in pain.
If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
I listen with attention to the judgment of all men; but so far as I can remember, I have followed none but my own.
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them if they will not apply themselves to me.
Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing.
I say that male and female are cast in the same mold; except for education and habits, the difference is not great.
I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.
A man should think less of what he eats and more with whom he eats because no food is so satisfying as good company.
A learned man is not learned in all things; but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout, even to ignorance itself.
Some, either from being glued to vice by a natural attachment, or from long habit, no longer recognize its ugliness.