Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The regard one shows economy, is like that we show an old aunt who is to leave us something at last.
Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.
Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent.
The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.
Many persons, when exalted, assume an insolent humility, who behaved before with an insolent haughtiness.
Amid the most mercenary ages it is but a secondary sort of admiration that is bestowed upon magnificence.
The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
A large retinue upon a small income, like a large cascade upon a small stream, tends to discover its tenuity.
It seems with wit and good-nature, Utrum horum mavis accipe. Taste and good-nature are universally connected.
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
Avarice is the most oppose of all characters to that of God Almighty, whose alone it is to give and not receive.
There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is that people can commend it without envy.
Men are sometimes accused of pride, merely because their accusers would be proud themselves were they in their places.
A plain narrative of any remarkable fact, emphatically related, has a more striking effect without the author's comment.
Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding than a church organ with devotion, or wine with good-nature.
The making presents to a lady one addresses is like throwing armor into an enemy's camp, with a resolution to recover it.
Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it.
Fools are very often united in the strictest intimacies, as the lighter kinds of woods are the most closely glued together.
Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief. while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it.
Some men are called sagacious, merely on account of their avarice; whereas a child can clench its fist the moment it is born.
A rich dress adds but little to the beauty of a person. It may possibly create a deference, but that is rather an enemy to love.
Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches.
In a heavy oppressive atmosphere, when the spirits sink too low, the best cordial is to read over all the letters of one's friends.
Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.
A person that would secure to himself great deference will, perhaps, gain his point by silence as effectually as by anything he can say.
Hope is a flatterer, but the most upright of all parasites; for she frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his superior.
Persons who discover a flatterer, do not always disapprove him, because he imagines them considerable enough to deserve his applications.
Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives those who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy person in their favor.
To thee, fair Freedom! I retire From flattery, cards, and dice, and din: Nor art thou found in mansions higher Than the low cot, or humble inn.
Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn.
Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind; censure stimulates and contracts,--both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper medium.
It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave.
I hate a style, as I do a garden, that is wholly flat and regular; that slides along like an eel, and never rises to what one can call an inequality.
Critics must excuse me if I compare them to certain animals called asses, who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of pruning them.
Independence may be found in comparative as well as in absolute abundance; I mean where a person contracts his desires within the limits of his fortune.
Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in it.
Some men use no other means to acquire respect than by insisting on it; and it sometimes answers their purpose, as it does a highwayman's in regard to money.
Those who are incapable of shining out by dress would do well to consider that the contrast between them and their clothes turns out much to their disadvantage.
Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.
Bashfulness is more frequently connected with good sense than we find assurance; and impudence, on the other hand, is often the mere effect of downright stupidity.
Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross, though the extract or tincture be ever so agreeable.
The lines of poetry, the period of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be preeminently musical.
Fashion is a great restraint upon your persons of taste and fancy; who would otherwise in the most trifling instances be able to distinguish themselves from the vulgar.
It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures.
A man of remarkable genius may afford to pass by a piece of wit, if it happen to border on abuse. A little genius is obliged to catch at every witticism indiscriminately.
Persons are oftentimes misled in regard to their choice of dress by attending to the beauty of colors, rather than selecting such colors as may increase their own beauty.
Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin as to be utterly void of use; or, if sterling, may require good management to make it serve the purposes of sense or happiness.
The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly the motive; the mere honest man does that from duty which the man of honor does for the sake of character.
The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them. Then the warmth of friendship, and the intelligence received, most forcibly cooperate.