Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We go on a journey to be free of all impediments; to leave ourselves behind much more than to get rid of others
I would like to spend the whole of my life traveling, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend at home.
Persons of slender intellectual stamina dread competition, as dwarfs are afraid of being run over in the street.
He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.
The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition.
The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.
The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.
The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.
Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.
Those who are pleased with the fewest things know the least, as those who are pleased with everything know nothing.
To expect an author to talk as he writes is ridiculous; or even if he did you would find fault with him as a pedant.
To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous.
Pride goes before a fall, they say, And yet we often find, The folks who throw all pride away Most often fall behind.
The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice; but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue.
Death puts an end to rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us, nor can we triumph over them.
Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.
Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement; it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard.
The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.
That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.
The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of great men.
The most phlegmatic dispositions often contain the most inflammable spirits, as fire is struck from the hardest flints.
Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.
Want of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap.
To be wiser than other men is to be honester than they; and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth.
Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them.
To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness.
Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.
Vanity does not refer to the opinion a man entertains of himself, but to that which he wishes others to entertain of him.
People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking.
The title of Ultracrepidarian critics has been given to those persons who find fault with small and insignificant details.
I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth... I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them.
To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said.
Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.
Learning is its own exceeding great reward; and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it.
A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof.
You are never tired of painting, because you have to set down not what you know already, but what you have just discovered.
There is a feeling of Eternity in youth which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortals.
The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one.
It may be made a question whether men grow wiser as they grow older, anymore than they grow stronger or healthier or honest.
I am proud up to the point of equality; everything above or below that appears to me arrant impertinence or abject meanness.
To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.
The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure.
Let a man's talents or virtues be what they may, he will only feel satisfaction in his society as he is satisfied in himself.
A situation in a public office is secure, but laborious and mechanical, and without the great springs of life, hope and fear.
A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.
Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it.
Poverty, labor, and calamity are not without their luxuries, which the rich, the indolent, and the fortunate in vain seek for.
If our hours were all serene, we might probably take almost as little note of them as the dial does of those that are clouded.
Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit -- or a mask. . . . The foregoing maxim shows the difference between truth and sarcasm.
The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.