Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void; And sure the Eternal Master found The single talent well employed.
The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers.
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
Pendantry is the unseasonable ostentation of learning. It may be discovered either in the choice of a subject or in the manner d treating it.
Every man has some favorite topic of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end.
It is scarcely credible to what degree discernment may be dazzled by the mist of pride, and wisdom infatuated by the intoxication of flattery.
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power.
I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.
Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue; and he who is spontaneously suspicious may justly be charged with radical corruption.
To be prejudiced is always to be weak; yet there are prejudices so near to laudable that they have been often praised and are always pardoned.
Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.
Foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb always a coxcomb.
Catch, then, oh! catch the transient hour, Improve each moment as it flies; Life's a short summer-man a flower; He dies-alas! how soon he dies!
To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough.
What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn't deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.
There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.
None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of fame.
Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.
When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed
Smoking is a shocking thing - blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us.
The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply.
Men who could willingly resign the luxuries and sensual pleasures of a large fortune cannot consent to live without the grandeur and the homage.
The coquette has companions, indeed, but no lovers,--for love is respectful and timorous; and where among her followers will she find a husband?
I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences, you are to tell the truth.
There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow, but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.
To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.
Resentment is a union of sorrow with malignity; a combination of a passion which all endeavor to avoid with a passion which all concur to detest.
The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation.
There is less flogging in our great schools than formerly-but then less is learned there; so what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.
Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.
Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others.
Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.
Terrestrial happiness is of short duration. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odors.
The necessary connexion of representatives with taxes, seems to have sunk deep into many of those minds, that admit sounds, without their meaning.
When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer their inferior while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them.
I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.
The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment.
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.
Knowledge always desires increase, it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself.
Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some peculiar theme of complaint on which he dwells in his moments of dejection.
As the faculty of writing has chiefly been a masculine endowment, the reproach of making the world miserable has always been thrown upon the women.
Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust.
Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.
Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.
The duties of religion, sincerely and regularly performed, will always be sufficient to exalt the meanest and to exercise the highest understanding.
Quack: A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand. A vain boastful pretender to physick; An artful, tricking practitioner in physick.