Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.
There must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence.
A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.
Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil.
Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.
The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted.
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
It seems to be remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred for the bad.
In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
I will take no more physick, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.
So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.
Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
He that would travel for the entertainment of others should remember that the great object of remark is human life.
There may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in publick than want of resolution: he may have nothing to say.
Sir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good from fear of remote evil; - from fear of its being abused.
Ease, a neutral state between pain and pleasure ... if it is not rising into pleasure will be falling towards pain.
It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
Be not too hasty to trust or to admire the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels, but they live like men.
Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
The hour of reformation is always delayed; every delay gives vice another opportunity of fortifying itself by habit.
Rain is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals.
Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it.
One of the aged greatest miseries is that they cannot easily find a companion able to share the memories of the past.
If the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.
These papers of the day have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes.
A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind, but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind.
It is observed of gold, by an old epigrammatist, that to have it is to be in fear, and to want it is to be in sorrow.
I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
Read over your compositions and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
A thousand years may elapse before there shall appear another man with a power of versification equal to that of Pope.
Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it.
The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside
Whoever rises above those who once pleased themselves with equality, will have many malevolent gazers at his eminence.
When a man marries a widow his jealousies revert to the past: no man is as good as his wife says her first husband was
There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.
Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.
Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation.
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.
Study requires solitude, and solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to sink into themselves
Justice is indispensably and universally necessary, and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct
Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances; it is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance.
We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.