Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.
Presumption will be easily corrected; but timidity is a disease of the mind more obstinate and fatal.
I do not much wish well to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and robbery.
By those who look close to the ground dirt will be seen. I hope I see things from a greater distance.
Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises.
Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.
Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach.
A man had rather have a hundred lies told of him than one truth which he does not wish should be told.
The roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must wither follow or meet one another.
You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income.
Cowardice encroaches fast upon such as spend their lives in company of persons higher than themselves.
To paint things as they are requires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than the fancy.
I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.
The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - it only hastens fools to rush in where angels fear to tread.
Hunting was the labour of the savages of North America, but the amusement of the gentlemen of England.
Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions
Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings; let us be therefore cautious of how we strip her.
Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.
Get together a hundred or two men, however sensible they may be, and you are very likely to have a mob.
Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.
There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.
It is the just doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquility.
A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city.
Everybody loves to have things which please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation.
Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.
In a Man's Letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirrour of his breast.
No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
Every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.
Diligence in employments of less consequence is the most successful introduction to greater enterprises.
This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among Lords.
Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.
The balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.
The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.
I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident he may easily find it.
I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other men, to mistake subsequence for consequence.
Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking.
Assertion is not argument; to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.
Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.
I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.
The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Nothing concentrates one's mind so much as the realization that one is going to be hanged in the morning!
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
Good breeding consists in having no particular mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners.
When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.