Top quotes by William Hazlitt

Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others! Votes: 56

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits. Votes: 40

Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy. Votes: 32

A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. Votes: 29

To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind. Votes: 25

Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else. Votes: 17

Some people break promises for the pleasure of breaking them. Votes: 15

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough. Votes: 14

Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune. Votes: 13

There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you. Votes: 13

Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love. Votes: 12

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts. Votes: 12

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater. Votes: 12

Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted. Votes: 11

The world judge of men by their ability in their profession, and we judge of ourselves by the same test: for it is on that on which our success in life depends. Votes: 10

Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves. Votes: 9

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts. Votes: 9

No truly great person ever thought themselves so. Votes: 9

Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them. Votes: 8

That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident. Votes: 8

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue. Votes: 7

Every man, in his own opinion, forms an exception to the ordinary rules of morality. Votes: 7

If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you. Votes: 7

If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators. Votes: 6

There are no rules for friendship. It must be left to itself. We cannot force it any more than love. Votes: 5

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. Votes: 4

The public have neither shame or gratitude. Votes: 4

The incentive to ambition is the love of power. Votes: 4

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. Votes: 2

Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts. Votes: 2

Zeal will do more than knowledge. Votes: 0

I would like to spend the whole of my life traveling, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend at home. Votes: 0

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. Votes: 0

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses. Votes: 0

A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions. Votes: 0

Grace in women has more effect than beauty. Votes: 0

We are not hypocrites in our sleep. Votes: 0

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history. Votes: 0

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. Votes: 0

I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why. Votes: 0

To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem... ridiculous. Votes: 0

Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith's bellows: they take breath but are not alive. Votes: 0

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it. Votes: 0

A hair in the head is worth two in the brush. Votes: 0

The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings. Votes: 0

The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings. Votes: 0

If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago. Votes: 0

A wise traveler never despises his own country. Votes: 0

The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up. Votes: 0

A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it. Votes: 0

To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living. Votes: 0

Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone - but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming. Votes: 0

Never so sure our rapture to createAs when it touch'd the brink of all we hate." Votes: 0

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy." Votes: 0

One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it. Votes: 0

Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration. Votes: 0

Those people who are always improving never become great. Greatness is an eminence, the ascent to which is steep and lofty, and which a man must seize on at once by natural boldness and vigor, and not by patient, wary steps. Votes: 0

The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices. Votes: 0

Sincerity has to do with the connexion between our words and thoughts, and not between our beliefs and actions. Votes: 0

The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot. Votes: 0

Those who wish to forget painful thoughts do well to absent themselves for a while from, the ties and objects that recall them; but we can be said only to fulfill our destiny in the place that gave us birth. Votes: 0

A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage. Votes: 0

It is easier taking the beaten path than making our way over bogs and precipices. The great difficulty in philosophy is to come to every question with a mind fresh and unshackled by former theories, though strengthened by exercise and information. Votes: 0

The busier we are the more leisure we have. Votes: 0

The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have. Votes: 0

We are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or even of self-interest. Even in the common transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident. The falling of a teacup puts us out of temper for the day; and a quarrel that commenced about the pattern of a gown may end only with our lives. Votes: 0

Nothing is more unjust or capricious than public opinion. Votes: 0

We had rather do anything than acknowledge the merit of another if we can help it. We cannot bear a superior or an equal. Hence ridicule is sure to prevail over truth, for the malice of mankind, thrown into the scale, gives the casting weight. Votes: 0

The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything. Votes: 0

Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape. Votes: 0

Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner - and then to thinking! ... I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence. Votes: 0

The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be. Votes: 0

We can bear to be deprived of everything but our self-conceit. Votes: 0

Gallantry to women - the sure road to their favor - is nothing but the appearance of extreme devotion to all their wants and wishes, a delight in their satisfaction, and a confidence in yourself as being able to contribute toward it Votes: 0

You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world. Votes: 0

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest. Votes: 0

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food. Votes: 0

An accomplished coquette excites the passions of others, in proportion as she feels none herself. Votes: 0

We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone. Votes: 0

Dandyism is a variety of genius. Votes: 0

Dandyism is a species of genius. Votes: 0

Life is the art of being well deceived. Votes: 0

One shining quality lends a lustre to another, or hides some glaring defect. Votes: 0

We grow tired of everything but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects. Votes: 0

A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them. Votes: 0

Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others. Votes: 0

One said a tooth drawer was a kind of unconscionable trade, because his trade was nothing else but to take away those things whereby every man gets his living. Votes: 0

The diffusion of taste is not the same thing as the improvement of taste. Votes: 0

Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man who liked to think and talk better than to read or write; who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote. Votes: 0

A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could. Votes: 0

General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it. Votes: 0

The corpse of friendship is not worth embalming. Votes: 0

The most violent friendships soonest wear themselves out. Votes: 0

It is only those who never think at all, or else who have accustomed themselves to blood invariably on abstract ideas, that ever feel ennui. Votes: 0

Wherever the Government does not emanate...from the people, the principle of the Government, the esprit de corps, the point of honour, in all those connected with it, and raised by it to privileges above the law and above humanity, will be hatred to the people. Votes: 0

I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began. Votes: 0

In art, in taste, in life, in speech, you decide from feeling, and not from reason ... If we were obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every occasion before we act, life would be at a stand, and Art would be impracticable. Votes: 0

There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice. Votes: 0

I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about. Votes: 0

The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with most regret, never did me the smallest favor. Votes: 0

A felon could plead "benefit of clergy" and be saved by [reading aloud] what was aptly enough termed the "neck verse", which was very usually the Miserere mei of Psalm 51. Votes: 0

First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not infrequently) to our cost, when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or studied actions. A man's look is the work of years; it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily. Votes: 0

It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse. Votes: 0

One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in the world. Votes: 0

The love of letters is the forlorn hope of the man of letters. His ruling passion is the love of fame. Votes: 0

The only true retirement is that of the heart; the only true leisure is the repose of the passions. To such persons it makes little difference whether they are young or old; and they die as they have lived, with graceful resignation. Votes: 0

Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken Votes: 0

There cannot be a surer proof of low origin, or of an innate meanness of disposition, than to be always talking and thinking of being genteel. Votes: 0

Charity, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Next to putting it in a bank, men like to squander their superfluous wealth on those to whom it is sure to be doing the least possible good. Votes: 0

A great mind is one that can forget or look beyond itself. Votes: 0

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it. Votes: 0

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind. Votes: 0

There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion. Votes: 0

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity. Votes: 0

The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others. Votes: 0

The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth. Votes: 0

An honest man is respected by all parties. Votes: 0

Horus non numero nisi serenas (I count only the sunny hours). Votes: 0

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy. Votes: 0

There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man. Votes: 0

Our lives are ruled by impermanence. The challenge is how to create something of enduring value within the context of our impermanent lives. Soka Gakkai Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts. Votes: 0

Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols -- it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them. Votes: 0

Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame. Votes: 0

Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; hatred alone is immortal. Votes: 0

Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity. Votes: 0

The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors. Votes: 0

The way to procure insults is to submit to them. A man meets with no more respect than he exacts. Votes: 0

Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul. Votes: 0

One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself. Votes: 0

A knave thinks himself a fool, all the time he is not making a fool of some other person. Votes: 0

The number of objects we see from living in a large city amuses the mind like a perpetual raree-show, without supplying it with any ideas. Votes: 0

Political truth is libel; religious truth, blasphemy. Votes: 0

Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part. Votes: 0

Tyrants forego all respect for humanity in proportion as they are sunk beneath it. Taught to believe themselves of a different species, they really become so, lose their participation with their kind, and in mimicking the god dwindle into the brute. Votes: 0

We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love. Votes: 0

Those only deserve a monument who do not need one. Votes: 0

He who would see old Hoghton right Must view it by the pale moonlight. Votes: 0

A nickname is the hardest stone that the devil can throw at a man. Votes: 0

The most learned are often the most narrow minded. Votes: 0

A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer - that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two. Votes: 0

Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise; of all arguments the most unanswerable. Votes: 0

Whatever excites the spirit of contradiction is capable of producing the last effects of heroism; which is only the highest pitch of obstinacy, in a good or bad cause, in wisdom or folly. Votes: 0

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may. Votes: 0

When we forget old friends, it is a sign we have forgotten ourselves. Votes: 0

Cant is the voluntary overcharging or prolongation of a real sentiment; hypocrisy is the setting up a pretension to a feeling you never had and have no wish for. Votes: 0

To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes. Votes: 0

No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he. Votes: 0

Rules and models destroy genius and art. Votes: 0

Refinement creates beauty everywhere. It is the grossness of the spectator that discovers anything like grossness in the object. Votes: 0

Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter, we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them. Votes: 0

Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. Votes: 0

Languages happily restrict the mind to what is of its own native growth and fitted for it, as rivers and mountains bond countries; or the empire of learning, as well as states, would become unwieldy and overgrown. Votes: 0

Many a man would have turned rogue if he knew how. Votes: 0

When you find out a man's ruling passion, beware of crossing him in it. Votes: 0

Like a rustic at a fair, we are full of amazement and rapture, and have no thought of going home, or that it will soon be night. Votes: 0

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in mind Votes: 0

Genius, like humanity, rusts for the want of use Votes: 0

It is not the errors of others, but our own miscalculations, on which we wreak our lasting vengeance. It is ourselves that we cannot forgive Votes: 0

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of i Votes: 0

Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust hatred alone is inmortal Votes: 0

Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating. Votes: 0

I do not care a fig for any woman that knows even what an author means. Votes: 0

He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies. Votes: 0

The present is an age of talkers, and not doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and doat on past achievements. Votes: 0

Love turns, with little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal. Votes: 0

Never so sure our rapture to createAs when it touch'd the brink of all we hate. Votes: 0

A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. Votes: 0

Shall I faint, now that I have poured out the spirit of my mind to the world, and treated many subjects with truth, with freedom, with power, because I have been followed with one cry of abuse ever since for not being a Government tool? Votes: 0

The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard. Votes: 0

The best kind of conversation is that which may be called thinking aloud. Votes: 0

We grow tired of ourselves, much more of other people. Votes: 0

It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books. Votes: 0

Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) - neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice. Votes: 0

By despising all that has preceded us, we teach others to despise ourselves. Votes: 0

Language, if it throws a veil over our ideas, adds a softness and refinement to them, like that which the atmosphere gives to naked objects. Votes: 0

We talk little when we do not talk about ourselves. Votes: 0

Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as spectacles to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The learned are mere literary drudges. Votes: 0

If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation. Votes: 0

There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiless, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself. Votes: 0

The slaves of power mind the cause they have to serve, because their own interest is concerned; but the friends of liberty always sacrifice their cause, which is only the cause of humanity, to their own spleen, vanity, and self-opinion. Votes: 0

Spleen can subsist on any kind of food. Votes: 0

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it. This is the reason why it is so difficult for any but natives to speak a language correctly or idiomatically. Votes: 0

You will hear more good things on the outside of a stagecoach from London to Oxford than if you were to pass a twelvemonth with the undergraduates, or heads of colleges, of that famous university. Votes: 0

No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Good temper is one of the greatest preservers of the features. Votes: 0

Good temper is an estate for life. Votes: 0

The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it. Votes: 0

The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savors less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people's virtues. Votes: 0

We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation. Votes: 0

Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship. Votes: 0

A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness. This will apply to all displays of power or trials of skill, which are confined to the momentary, individual effort, and construct no permanent image or trophy of themselves without them Votes: 0

The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires. Votes: 0

Want of principle is power. Truth and honesty set a limit to our efforts, which impudence and hypocrisy easily overleap. Votes: 0

In public speaking, we must appeal either to the prejudices of others, or to the love of truth and justice. If we think merely of displaying our own ability, we shall ruin every cause we undertake. Votes: 0

Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse. Votes: 0

By retaliating our sufferings on the heads of those we love, we get rid of a present uneasiness and incur lasting remorse. With the accomplishment of our revenge our fondness returns; so that we feel the injury we have done them, even more than they do. Votes: 0

The affected modesty of most women is a decoy for the generous, the delicate, and unsuspecting; while the artful, the bold, and unfeeling either see or break through its slender disguises. Votes: 0

As we advance in life, we acquire a keener sense of the value of time. Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence; and we become misers in this respect. Votes: 0

Features alone do not run in the blood; vices and virtues, genius and folly, are transmitted through the same sure but unseen channel. Votes: 0

We prefer a person with vivacity and high spirits, though bordering upon insolence, to the timid and pusillanimous; we are fonder of wit joined to malice than of dullness without it. Votes: 0

Fashion is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism ... tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every whim of the minute. Votes: 0

Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that. Votes: 0

If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory. Votes: 0

Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world. Votes: 0

The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature. Votes: 0

The truly proud man knows neither superiors or inferiors. The first he does not admit of - the last he does not concern himself about. Votes: 0

He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others. Votes: 0

Reflection makes men cowards. Votes: 0

The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature. Votes: 0

There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our firends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please, that is, as they please or displease us. Votes: 0

The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet. Votes: 0

Learning is its own exceeding great reward. Votes: 0

Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul. Votes: 0

It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Genius, like humanity, rusts for want of use. Votes: 0

The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours. Votes: 0

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases. Votes: 0

...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself. Votes: 0

[Science is] the desire to know causes. Votes: 0

A certain excess of animal spirits with thoughtless good-humor will often make more enemies than the most deliberate spite and ill-nature, which is on its guard, and strikes with caution and safety. Votes: 0

A distinction has been made between acuteness and subtlety of understanding. This might be illustrated by saying that acuteness consists in taking up the points or solid atoms, subtlety in feeling the air of truth. Votes: 0

A full-dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity; an ethical automaton. A clerical prig is, in general, a very dangerous as well as contemptible character. The utmost that those who thus habitually confound their opinions and sentiments with the outside coverings of their bodies can aspire to, is a negative and neutral character, like wax-work figures, where the dress is done as much to the life as the man, and where both are respectable pieces of pasteboard, or harmless compositions of fleecy hosiery. Votes: 0

A great man la an abstraction of some one excellence; but whoever fancies himself an abstraction of excellence, so far from being great, may be sure that he is a blockhead, equally ignorant of excellence or defect of himself or others. Votes: 0

A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own. Votes: 0

A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. Votes: 0

A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being. Votes: 0

A lively blockhead in company is a public benefit. Silence or dulness by the side of folly looks like wisdom. Votes: 0

A man in love prefers his passion to every other consideration, and is fonder of his mistress than he is of virtue. Should she prove vicious, she makes vice lovely in his eyes. Votes: 0

A man is a hypocrite only when he affects to take a delight in what he does not feel, not because he takes a perverse delight in opposite things. Votes: 0

A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn. Votes: 0

A man who does not endeavour to seem more than he is will generally be thought nothing of. We habitually make such large deductions for pretence and imposture that no real merit will stand against them. It is necessary to set off our good qualities with a certain air of plausibility and self-importance, as some attention to fashion is necessary. Votes: 0

A man who is determined never to move out of the beaten road cannot lose his way. Votes: 0

A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof. Votes: 0

A man's reputation is not in his own keeping, but lies at the mercy of the profligacy of others. Calumny requires no proof. The throwing out [of] malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain, which no after-refutation can wipe out. To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said. The imagination is of so delicate a texture that even words wound it. Votes: 0

A mighty stream of tendency. Votes: 0

A person who talks with equal vivacity on every subject, excites no interest in any. Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture. Votes: 0

A proud man is satisfied with his own good opinion, and does not seek to make converts to it. Votes: 0

A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself. Votes: 0

A situation in a public office is secure, but laborious and mechanical, and without the great springs of life, hope and fear. Votes: 0

A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means. Votes: 0

A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman, Science alone is hard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests. Votes: 0

A thing is not vulgar merely because it is common. Votes: 0

A thought must tell at once, or not at all. Votes: 0

A woman's vanity is interested in making the object of her choice the god of her idolatry. Votes: 0

Abuse is an indirect species of homage. Votes: 0

Actors are the only honest hypocrites. Votes: 0

Affectation is as necessary to the mind as dress is to the body. Votes: 0

All is without form and void. Someone said of his landscapes that they were pictures of nothing and very like. Votes: 0

An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers. Votes: 0

Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts; but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express; it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it. Votes: 0

Any woman may act the part of a coquette successfully who has the reputation without the scruples of modesty. If a woman passes the bounds of propriety for our sakes, and throws herself unblushingly at our heads, we conclude it is either from a sudden and violent liking, or from extraordinary merit on our parts, either of which is enough to turn any man's head who has a single spark of gallantry or vanity in his composition. Votes: 0

Anyone is to be pitied who has just sense enough to perceive his deficiencies. Votes: 0

Anyone must be mainly ignorant or thoughtless, who is surprised at everything he sees; or wonderfully conceited who expects everything to conform to his standard of propriety. Votes: 0

Art is the microscope of the mind, which sharpens the wit as the other does the sight; and converts every object into a little universe in itself. Art may be said to draw aside the veil from nature. To those who are perfectly unskilled in the practice, unimbued with the principles of art, most objects present only a confused mass. Votes: 0

Art must anchor in nature, or it is the sport of every breath of folly. Votes: 0

As a general rule, those who are dissatisfied with themselves will seek to go out of themselves into an ideal world. Persons in strong health and spirits, who take plenty of air and exercise, who are "in favor with, their stars," and have a thorough relish of the good things of this life, seldom devote themselves in despair to religion or the muses. Sedentary, nervous, hypochondriacal people, on the contrary, are forced, for want of an appetite for the real and substantial, to look out for a more airy food and speculative comforts. Votes: 0

As hypocrisy is said to be the highest compliment to virtue, the art of lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth. Votes: 0

As is our confidence, so is our capacity. Votes: 0

As we are poetical in our natures, so we delight in fable. Votes: 0

Asleep, nobody is a hypocrite Votes: 0

Avarice is the miser's dream, as fame is the poet's. Votes: 0

Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for - they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood? Votes: 0

Believe all the good you can of everyone. Do not measure others by yourself. If they have advantages which you have not, let your liberality keep pace with their good fortune. Envy no one, and you need envy no one. Votes: 0

Books are a world in themselves, it is true; but they are not the only world. The world itself is a volume larger than all the libraries in it. Votes: 0

Books wind into the heart. Votes: 0

But of all footmen the lowest class is literary footmen. Votes: 0

By conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages. Votes: 0

Comedy naturally wears itself out - destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at. Votes: 0

Common sense, to most people, is nothing more than their own opinions. Votes: 0

Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration. Votes: 0

Confidence gives a fool the advantage over a wise man. Votes: 0

Corporate bodies are more corrupt and profligate than individuals, because they have more power to do mischief, and are less amenable to disgrace or punishment. They feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill. Votes: 0

Cowardice is not synonymous with prudence. It often happens that the better part of discretion is valor. Votes: 0

Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization. Votes: 0

Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope. Votes: 0

Death puts an end to rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us, nor can we triumph over them. Votes: 0

Despair swallows up cowardice. Votes: 0

Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love. Votes: 0

Do not quarrel with the world too soon; for, bad as it may be, it is the best we have to live in, here. If railing would have made it better, it would have been reformed long ago. Votes: 0

Elegance is something more than ease; it is more than a freedom from awkwardness or restraint. It implies, I conceive, a precision, a polish, a sparkling, spirited yet delicate. Votes: 0

Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded. Votes: 0

Envy is littleness of soul. Votes: 0

Envy is the deformed and distorted offspring of egotism; and when we reflect on the strange and disproportioned character of the parent, we cannot wonder at the perversity and waywardness of the child. Votes: 0

Envy is the most universal passion. We only pride ourselves on the qualities we possess, or think we possess; but we envy the pretensions we have, and those which we have not, and do not even wish for. We envy the greatest qualities and every trifling advantage. We envy the most ridiculous appearance or affectation of superiority. We envy folly and conceit; nay, we go so far as to envy whatever confers distinction of notoriety, even vice and infamy. Votes: 0

Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it. Votes: 0

Every man, in judging of himself, is his own contemporary. He may feel the gale of popularity, but he cannot tell how long it will last. His opinion of himself wants distance, wants time, wants numbers, to set it off and confirm it. Votes: 0

Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; none out of ten have the inclination. Votes: 0

Experience makes us wise. Votes: 0

Faith is necessary to victory. Votes: 0

Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction; interest and prejudice take away the power of judging. Votes: 0

Fashion constantly begins and ends in the two things it abhors most, singularity and vulgarity. Votes: 0

Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement; it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard. Votes: 0

From the height from which the great look down on the world all the rest of mankind seem equal. Votes: 0

Genius is a native to the soil where it grows - is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun; and is not a hothouse plant or an exotic Votes: 0

Genius only leaves behind it the monuments of its strength. Votes: 0

Grace in women has more effect than beauty. We sometimes see a certain fine self-possession, an habitual voluptuousness of character, which reposes on its own sensations and derives pleasure from all around it, that is more irresistible than any other attraction. There is an air of languid enjoyment in such persons, "in their eyes, in their arms, and their hands, and their face," which robs us of ourselves, and draws us by a secret sympathy towards them. Votes: 0

Greatness is great power, producing great effects. It is not enough that a man has great power in himself, he must shew it to all the world in a way that cannot be hid or gainsaid. Votes: 0

Habit in most cases hardens and encrusts by taking away the keener edge of our sensations: but does it not in others quicken and refine, by giving a mechanical facility and by engrafting an acquired sense? Votes: 0

Habit is necessary to give power. Votes: 0

Habitual liars invent falsehoods not to gain any end or even to deceive their hearers, but to amuse themselves. It is partly practice and partly habit. It requires an effort in them to speak truth. Votes: 0

Happy are they who live in the dream of their own existence, and see all things in the light of their own minds; who walk by faith and hope; to whom the guiding star of their youth still shines from afar, and into whom the spirit of the world has not entered! They have not been "hurt by the archers", nor has the iron entered their souls. The world has no hand on them. Votes: 0

He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves. Votes: 0

He who does nothing renders himself incapable of doing any thing; but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another. Votes: 0

He who draws upon his own resources easily comes to an end of his wealth. Votes: 0

He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books are ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity; and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery. Votes: 0

He who is as faithful to his principles as he is to himself is the true partisan. Votes: 0

He who lives wisely to himself and his own heart looks at the busy world through the loopholes of retreat, and does not want to mingle in the fray. Votes: 0

His hypothesis goes to this - to make the common run of his readers fancy they can do all that can be done by genius, and to make the man of genius believe he can only do what is to be done by mechanical rules and systematic industry. This is not a very feasible scheme; nor is Sir Joshua sufficiently clear and explicit in his reasoning in support of it. Votes: 0

Honesty is one part of eloquence. We persuade others by being in earnest ourselves. Votes: 0

Hope is the best possession. Votes: 0

However we may flatter ourselves to the contrary, our friends think no higher of us than the world do. They see us through the jaundiced or distrustful eyes of others. They may know better, but their feelings are governed by popular prejudice. Nay, they are more shy of us (when under a cloud) than even strangers; for we involve them in a common disgrace, or compel them to embroil themselves in continual quarrels and disputes in our defense. Votes: 0

Human life may be regarded as a succession of frontispieces. The way to be satisfied is never to look back. Votes: 0

Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers. Votes: 0

Humour is the describing the ludicrous as it is in itself; wit is the exposing it, by comparing or contrasting it with something else. Humour is, as it were, the growth of nature and accident; wit is the product of art and fancy. Votes: 0

Humour is the making others act or talk absurdly and unconsciously; wit is the pointing out and ridiculing that absurdity consciously, and with more or less ill-nature. Votes: 0

I am always afraid of a fool. One cannot be sure that he is not a knave as well. Votes: 0

I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them. Votes: 0

I am proud up to the point of equality; everything above or below that appears to me arrant impertinence or abject meanness. Votes: 0

I am then never less alone than when alone Votes: 0

I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me Votes: 0

I do not think that what is called Love at first sight is so great an absurdity as it is sometimes imagined to be. We generally make up our minds beforehand to the sort of person we should like, grave or gay, black, brown, or fair; with golden tresses or raven locks; - and when we meet with a complete example of the qualities we admire, the bargain is soon struck. Votes: 0

I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London. Votes: 0

I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth... I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them. Votes: 0

I have a much greater ambition to be the best racket player than the best prose writer. Votes: 0

I have known persons without a friend--never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies. Votes: 0

I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what is to be done in given circumstances and does it. He does not beat about the bush for difficulties or excuses, but goes the shortest and most effectual way to work to attain his own ends, or to accomplish a useful object. Votes: 0

I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it. Votes: 0

I maintain that there is no common language or medium of understanding between people of education and without it - between those who judge of things from books or from their senses. Ignorance has so far the advantage over learning; for it can make an appeal to you from what you know; but you cannot re-act upon it through that which it is a perfect stranger to. Ignorance is, therefore, power. Votes: 0

If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power. Votes: 0

If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of things, the idea of which is a clear gain to the mind. Let people, for instance, rail at friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will -the very names of these despised qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most envenomed satire against them. Votes: 0

If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

If we are long absent from our friends, we forget them; if we are constantly with them, we despise them. Votes: 0

If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect. Votes: 0

In exploring new and doubtful tracts of speculation, the mind strikes out true and original views; as a drop of water hesitates at first what direction it will take, but afterwards follows its own course. Votes: 0

In love we do not think of moral qualities, and scarcely of intellectual ones. Temperament and manner alone, with beauty, excite love. Votes: 0

In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates. Votes: 0

In what we really understand, we reason but little. Votes: 0

It [will-making] is the latest opportunity we have of exercising the natural perversity of the disposition ... This last act of our lives seldom belies the former tenor of them for stupidity, caprice, and unmeaning spite. All that we seem to think of is to manage matters so (in settling accounts with those who are so unmannerly as to survive us) as to do as little good, and to plague and disappoint as many people, as possible. Votes: 0

It has been the resolution of mankind in all ages of the world. No people, no age, ever threw away the fruits of past wisdom, or the enjoyment of present blessings, for visionary schemes of ideal perfection. It is the knowledge of the past, the actual infliction of the present, that has produced all changes, all innovations, and all improvements - not (as is pretended) the chimerical anticipation of possible advantages, but the intolerable pressure of long-established, notorious, aggravated, and growing abuses. Votes: 0

It is a false principle that because we are entirely occupied with ourselves, we must equally occupy the thoughts of others. The contrary inference is the fair one. Votes: 0

It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else. Votes: 0

It is better to desire than to enjoy, to love than to be loved. Votes: 0

It is better to drink of deep grief than to taste shallow pleasures. Votes: 0

It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed. Votes: 0

It is not the passion of a mind struggling with misfortune, or the hopelessness of its desires, but of a mind preying on itself, and disgusted with, or indifferent to all other things. Votes: 0

It is only necessary to raise a bugbear before the English imagination in order to govern it at will. Whatever they hate or fear, they implicitly believe in, merely from the scope it gives to these passions. Votes: 0

It is remarkable how virtuous and generously disposed every one is at a play. Votes: 0

It is well there is no one without fault; for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to s different species. Votes: 0

It may be made a question whether men grow wiser as they grow older, anymore than they grow stronger or healthier or honest. Votes: 0

It might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man. Votes: 0

Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves. Votes: 0

Keep your misfortunes to yourself. Votes: 0

Kings ought never to be seen upon the stage. In the abstract, they are very disagreeable characters: it is only while living that they are 'the best of kings'. It is their power, their splendour, it is the apprehension of the personal consequences of their favour or their hatred that dazzles the imagination and suspends the judgement of their favourites or their vassals; but death cancels the bond of allegiance and of interest; and seen AS THEY WERE, their power and their pretensions look monstrous and ridiculous. Votes: 0

Knowledge is pleasure as well as power. Votes: 0

Landscape painting is the obvious resource of misanthropy. Votes: 0

Learning is its own exceeding great reward; and at the period of which we speak, it bore other fruits, not unworthy of it. Votes: 0

Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned know. Votes: 0

Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Liberty is the only true riches: of all the rest we are at once the masters and the slaves. Votes: 0

Life is a continued struggle to be what we are not, and to do what we cannot. Votes: 0

Literature, like nobility, runs in the blood. Votes: 0

Love and joy are twins or born of each other. Votes: 0

Love at first sight is only realizing an imagination that has always haunted us; or meeting with a face, a figure, or cast of expression in perfection that we have seen and admired in a less degree or in less favorable circumstances a hundred times before. Votes: 0

Love may turn to indifference with possession. Votes: 0

Lying is the strongest acknowledgement of the force of truth. Votes: 0

Malice often takes the garb of truth. Votes: 0

Man is a poetical animal, and delights in fiction. Votes: 0

Man is an intellectual animal, and therefore an everlasting contradiction to himself. His senses centre in himself, his ideas reach to the ends of the universe; so that he is torn in pieces between the two, without a possibility of its ever being otherwise. Votes: 0

Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them. Votes: 0

Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy. Votes: 0

Men are in numberless instances qualified for certain things, for no other reason than because they are qualified for nothing else. Votes: 0

Men of gravity are intellectual stammerers, whose thoughts move slowly. Votes: 0

Men of the greatest genius are not always the most prodigal of their encomiums. But then it is when their range of power is confined, and they have in fact little perception, except of their own particular kind of excellence. Votes: 0

Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else. Votes: 0

Most of the methods for measuring the lapse of time have, I believe, been the contrivance of monks and religious recluses, who, finding time hang heavy on their hands, were at some pains to see how they got rid of it. Votes: 0

Natural affection is a prejudice; for though we have cause to love our nearest connections better than others, we have no reason to think them better than others. Votes: 0

No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness. Votes: 0

No man can thoroughly master more than one art or science. Votes: 0

No man would, I think, exchange his existence with any other man, however fortunate. We had as lief not be, as not be ourselves. Votes: 0

No really great man ever thought himself so. Votes: 0

No young man ever thinks he shall die. Votes: 0

None but those who are happy in themselves can make others so. Votes: 0

Nothing gives such a blow to friendship as the detecting another in an untruth. It strikes at the root of our confidence ever after. Votes: 0

Nothing precludes sympathy so much as a perfect indifference to it Votes: 0

Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another. Votes: 0

One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone. Votes: 0

One said he wondered that leather was not dearer than any other thing. Being demanded a reason: because, saith he, it is more stood upon than any other thing in the world. Votes: 0

One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so; for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed. Votes: 0

Or have I passed my time in pouring words like water into empty sieves, rolling a stone up a hill and then down again, trying to prove an argument in the teeth of facts, and looking for causes in the dark, and not finding them? Votes: 0

Our contempt for others proves nothing but the illiberality and narrowness of our own views. Votes: 0

Our friends are generally ready to do everything for us, except the very thing we wish them to do. Votes: 0

Our notions with respect to the importance of life, and our attachment to it, depend on a principle which has very little to do with its happiness or its misery. The love of life is, in general, the effect not of our enjoyments, but of our passions. Votes: 0

Our opinions are not our own, but in the power of sympathy. If a person tells us a palpable falsehood, we not only dare not contradict him, but we dare hardly disbelieve him to his face. A lie boldly uttered has the effect of truth for the instant. Votes: 0

Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain. Votes: 0

Painters... are the most lively observers of what passes in the world about them, and the closest observers of what passes in their own minds. Votes: 0

Painting for a whole morning gives one as excellent an appetite for one's dinner, as old Abraham Tucker acquired for his by riding over Banstead Downs. Votes: 0

Painting gives the object itself; poetry what it implies. Painting embodies what a thing contains in itself; poetry suggests what exists out of it, in any manner connected with it. Votes: 0

People addicted to secrecy are so without knowing why; they are not so for cause, but for secrecy's sake. Votes: 0

People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it. Votes: 0

People do not persist in their vices because they are not weary of them, but because they cannot leave them off. It is the nature of vice to leave us no resource but in itself. Votes: 0

People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking. Votes: 0

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel. Votes: 0

People try to reconcile you to a disappointment in love by asking why you should cherish a passion for an object that has proved itself worthless. Had you known this before, you would not have encouraged the passion; but that having been once formed, knowledge does not destroy it. If we have drank poison, finding it out does not prevent its being in our veins: so passion leaves its poison in the mind! Votes: 0

Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman; elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman; dignity is proper to noblemen; and majesty to kings. Votes: 0

Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. Votes: 0

Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern. Why, then, should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be? Votes: 0

Persons of slender intellectual stamina dread competition, as dwarfs are afraid of being run over in the street. Votes: 0

Persons who undertake to pry into, or cleanse out all the filth of a common sewer, either cannot have very nice noses, or will soon lose them. Votes: 0

Persons without education certainly do not want either acuteness or strength of mind in what concerns themselves, or in things immediately within their observation; but they have no power of abstraction, no general standard of taste, or scale of opinion. They see their objects always near, and never in the horizon. Hence arises that egotism which has been remarked as the characteristic of self-taught men. Votes: 0

Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life. Votes: 0

Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic. Votes: 0

Popularity disarms envy in well-disposed minds. Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others who feel that the world has done them justice. When success has not this effect in opening the mind, it is a sign that it has been ill deserved. Votes: 0

Popularity is neither fame nor greatness. Votes: 0

Poverty, labor, and calamity are not without their luxuries, which the rich, the indolent, and the fortunate in vain seek for. Votes: 0

Poverty, when it is voluntary, is never despicable, but takes an heroical aspect. Votes: 0

Power is pleasure; and pleasure sweetens pain. Votes: 0

Prejudice is never easy unless it can pass itself off for reason. Votes: 0

Prejudice is the child of ignorance. Votes: 0

Pride erects a little kingdom of its own, and acts as sovereign in it. Votes: 0

Pride goes before a fall, they say, And yet we often find, The folks who throw all pride away Most often fall behind. Votes: 0

Pride is founded not on the sense of happiness, but on the sense of power. Votes: 0

Principle is a passion for truth. Votes: 0

Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust. Hatred alone is immortal. Votes: 0

Reflection brakes men cowards. There is no object that can be put in competition with life, unless it is viewed through the medium of passion, and we are hurried away by the impulse of the moment. Votes: 0

Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretenses to both. Votes: 0

Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture. Votes: 0

Silence is one great art of conversation. Votes: 0

Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue; and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves. Votes: 0

So I have loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything. Votes: 0

Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs. Votes: 0

Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs. The heaviest charge we can bring against the general texture of society is that it is commonplace. Our fancied superiority to others is in some one thing which we think most of because we excel in it, or have paid most attention to it; whilst we overlook their superiority to us in something else which they set equal and exclusive store by. Votes: 0

Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke. Votes: 0

Success in business is seldom owing to uncommon talents or original power which is untractable and self-willed, but to the greatest degree of commonplace capacity. Votes: 0

Talent is the capacity of doing anything that depends on application and industry and it is a voluntary power, while genius is involuntary. Votes: 0

Taste is nothing but an enlarged capacity for receiving pleasure from works of imagination. Votes: 0

Tears may be considered as the natural and involuntary resource of the mind overcome by some sudden and violent emotion, before ithas had time to reconcile its feelings to the change in circumstances: while laughter may be defined to be the same sort of convulsive and involuntary movement, occasioned by mere sur prise or contrast (in the absence of any more serious emotion), before it has time to reconcile its belief to contradictory appearances. Votes: 0

That humanity and sincerity which dispose men to resist injustice and tyranny render them unfit to cope with the cunning and power of those who are opposed to them. The friends of liberty trust to the professions of others because they are themselves sincere, and endeavour to secure the public good with the least possible hurt to its enemies, who have no regard to anything but their own unprincipled ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish them. Votes: 0

That which anyone has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste. Votes: 0

The admiration of power in others is as common to man as the love of it in himself; the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave. Votes: 0

The amiable is the voluptuous in expression or manner. The sense of pleasure in ourselves is that which excites it in others; or, the art of pleasing is to seem pleased. Votes: 0

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much. Votes: 0

The art of pleasing consists in being pleased. Votes: 0

The assumption of merit is easier, less embarrassing, and more effectual than the actual attainment of it. Votes: 0

The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come. Votes: 0

The best way to make ourselves agreeable to others is by seeming to think them so. If we appear fully sensible of their good qualities they will not complain of the want of them in us. Votes: 0

The book-worm wraps himself up in his web of verbal generalities, and sees only the glimmering shadows of things reflected from the minds of others. Votes: 0

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it. Votes: 0

The confined air of a metropolis is hurtful to the minds and bodies of those who have never lived out of it. It is impure, stagnant--without breathing-space to allow a larger view of ourselves or others--and gives birth to a puny, sickly, unwholesome, and degenerate race of beings. Votes: 0

The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why. Votes: 0

The devil was a great loss in the preternatural world. He was always something to fear and to hate; he supplied the antagonist powers of the imagination, and the arch of true religion hardly stands firm without him. Votes: 0

The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: the one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English. Votes: 0

The discussing the characters and foibles of common friends is a great sweetness and cement of friendship. Votes: 0

The English (it must be owned) are rather a foul-mouthed nation. Votes: 0

The essence of poetry is will and passion. Votes: 0

The expression of a gentleman's face is not so much that of refinement, as of flexibility, not of sensibility and enthusiasm as of indifference; it argues presence of mind rather than enlargement of ideas. Votes: 0

The fear of approaching death, which in youth we imagine must cause inquietude to the aged, is very seldom the source of much uneasiness. Votes: 0

The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice; but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue. Votes: 0

The garb of religion is the best cloak for power. Votes: 0

The great have private feelings of their own, to which the interests of humanity and justice must curtsy. Their interests are so far from being the same as those of the community, that they are in direct and necessary opposition to them; their power is at the expense of OUR weakness; their riches of OUR poverty; their pride of OUR degradation; their splendour of OUR wretchedness; their tyranny of OUR servitude. Votes: 0

The great requisite for the prosperous management of ordinary business is the want of imagination. Votes: 0

The greatest grossness sometimes accompanies the greatest refinement, as a natural relief. Votes: 0

The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The greatest reverses of fortune are the most easily borne from a sort of dignity belonging to them. Votes: 0

The history of mankind is a romance, a mask, a tragedy, constructed upon the principles of POETICAL JUSTICE; it is a noble or royal hunt, in which what is sport to the few is death to the many, and in which the spectators halloo and encourage the strong to set upon the weak, and cry havoc in the chase, though they do not share in the spoil. Votes: 0

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment. Votes: 0

The ignorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its malice. Votes: 0

The insolence of the vulgar is in proportion to their ignorance. They treat everything with contempt which they do not understand. Votes: 0

The Irish are hearty, the Scotch plausible, the French polite, the Germans good-natured, the Italians courtly, the Spaniards reserved and decorous - the English alone seem to exist in taking and giving offense. Votes: 0

The last pleasure in life is the sense of discharging our duty. Votes: 0

The last sort I shall mention are verbal critics - mere word-catchers, fellows that pick out a word in a sentence and a sentence in a volume, and tell you it is wrong. The title of Ultra-Crepidarian critics has been given to a variety of this species. Votes: 0

The look of a gentleman is little else than the reflection of the looks of the world. Votes: 0

The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time. Votes: 0

The love of fame is too high and delicate a feeling in the mind to be mixed up with realities, it is a solitary abstraction. * * * A name "fast anchored in the deep abyss of time" is like a star twinkling in the firmament, cold, silent, distant, but eternal and sublime; and our transmitting one to posterity is as if we should contemplate our translation to the skies. Votes: 0

The measure of any man's virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him. Votes: 0

The mind revolts against certain opinions, as the stomach rejects certain foods. Votes: 0

The more a man writes, the more he can write. Votes: 0

The more we do, the more we can do. Votes: 0

The more you do, the more you can do. Votes: 0

The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers. Votes: 0

The most phlegmatic dispositions often contain the most inflammable spirits, as fire is struck from the hardest flints. Votes: 0

The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life. Votes: 0

The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves. Votes: 0

The multitude who require to be led, still hate their leaders. Votes: 0

The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote. Votes: 0

The origin of all science is the desire to know causes, and the origin of all false science is the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance. Votes: 0

The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to ranking spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness. Votes: 0

The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner. Votes: 0

The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement. Votes: 0

The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's sister, who was no saint, sat to Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, "No. There was a fire in the room." Votes: 0

The public is so in awe of its own opinion that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, lest it should be behindhand in its judgment, and echoes it till it is deafened with the sound of its own voice. Votes: 0

The rule for traveling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and leave our prejudices behind. Votes: 0

The safest kind of praise is to foretell that another will become great in some particular way. It has the greatest show of magnanimity and the least of it in reality. Votes: 0

The same reason makes a man a religious enthusiast that makes a man an enthusiast in any other way ... an uncomfortable mind in an uncomfortable body. Votes: 0

The secret of the difficulties of those people who make a great deal of money, and yet are always in want of it, is this-they throw it away as soon as they get it on the first whim or extravagance that strikes them, and have nothing left to meet ordinary expenses or discharge old debts. Votes: 0

The severest critics are always those who have either never attempted, or who have failed in original composition. Votes: 0

The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure. Votes: 0

The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children. Votes: 0

The soul of dispatch is decision. Votes: 0

The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of great men. Votes: 0

The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practice. The rest is affectation and imposture. Votes: 0

The title of Ultracrepidarian critics has been given to those persons who find fault with small and insignificant details. Votes: 0

The truth is, we pamper little griefs into great ones, and bear great ones as well as we can. Votes: 0

The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace. Votes: 0

The vices are never so well employed as in combating one another. Votes: 0

The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it. Votes: 0

The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors. Votes: 0

The worst old age is that of the mind. Votes: 0

The wretched are in this respect fortunate, that they have the strongest yearning after happiness; and to desire is in some sense to enjoy. Votes: 0

The youth is better than the old age of friendship. Votes: 0

There are many who talk on from ignorance rather than from knowledge, and who find the former an inexhaustible fund of conversation. Votes: 0

There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes! Votes: 0

There are only three pleasures in life pure and lasting, and all derived from inanimate things-books, pictures and the face of nature. Votes: 0

There are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your books and papers in order--that is, according to their notions of the matter--and hide things lest they should be lost, where neither the owner nor anybody else can find them. This is a sort of magpie faculty. If anything is left where you want it, it is called litter. There is a pedantry in housewifery, as well as in the gravest concerns. Abraham Tucker complained that whenever his maid servant had been in his library, he could not see comfortably to work again for several days. Votes: 0

There are some persons who never succeed from being too indolent to undertake anything; and others who regularly fail, because the instant they find success in their power, they grow indifferent, and give over the attempt. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

There is a quiet repose and steadiness about the happiness of age, if the life has been well spent. Its feebleness is not painful. The nervous system has lost its acuteness. But, in mature years we feel that a burn, a scald, a cut, is more tolerable than it was in the sensitive period of youth. Votes: 0

There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical. "I count only the hours that are serene.". Votes: 0

There is an unseemly exposure of the mind, as well as of the body. Votes: 0

There is evil poured upon the earth from the overflowings of corruption-- Sickness, and poverty, and pain, and guilt, and madness, and sorrow; But, as the water from a fountain riseth and sinketh to its level, Ceaselessly toileth justice to equalize the lots of men. Votes: 0

There is no flattery so adroit or effectual as that of implicit assent. Votes: 0

There is nothing good to be had in the country, or if there is, they will not let you have it. Votes: 0

There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable. Votes: 0

There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character. Votes: 0

There is nothing so remote from vanity as true genius. It is almost as natural for those who are endowed with the highest powers of the human mind to produce the miracles of art, as for other men to breathe or move. Correggio, who is said to have produced some of his divinest works almost without having seen a picture, probably did not know that he had done anything extraordinary. Votes: 0

There is room enough in human life to crowd almost every art and science in it. If we pass ""no day without a line""-visit no place without the company of a book-we may with ease fill libraries or empty them of their contents. The more we do, the more busy we are, the more leisure we have. Votes: 0

There is some virtue in almost every vice, except hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is at the same time a compliment to it. Votes: 0

There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which, we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect, the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself. Votes: 0

They [corporations] feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill. Votes: 0

They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness. Votes: 0

They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors. Votes: 0

This is the test and triumph of originality, not to show us what has never been, and what we may therefore very easily never have dreamt of, but to point out to us what is before our eyes and under our feet, though we have had no suspicion of its existence, for want of sufficient strength of intuition, of determined grasp of mind to seize and retain it. Votes: 0

Those are ever the most ready to do justice to others, who feel that the world has done them justice. Votes: 0

Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men. Votes: 0

Those people who are uncomfortable in themselves are disagreeable to others. Votes: 0

Those who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong. Votes: 0

Those who are pleased with the fewest things know the least, as those who are pleased with everything know nothing. Votes: 0

Those who can command themselves command others. Votes: 0

Those who have had none of the cares of this life to harass and disturb them, have been obliged to have recourse to the hopes and fears of the next to vary the prospect before them. Votes: 0

Those who have little shall have less, and that those who have much shall take all that others have left. Votes: 0

Those who have the largest hearts have the soundest understandings; and they are the truest philosophers who can forget themselves. Votes: 0

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress. Votes: 0

Those who object to wit are envious of it. Votes: 0

Time,--the most independent of all things. Votes: 0

To be forward to praise others implies either great eminence, that can afford to, part with applause; or great quickness of discernment, with confidence in our own judgments; or great sincerity and love of truth, getting the better of our self-love. Votes: 0

To be happy, we must be true to nature and carry our age along with us. Votes: 0

To create an unfavorable impression, it is not necessary that certain things should be true, but that they have been said. Votes: 0

To die is only to be as we were before we were born; yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea. Votes: 0

To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

To great evils we submit; yet we resent little provocations. Votes: 0

To impress the idea of power on others, they must be made in some way to feel it. Votes: 0

To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject. Votes: 0

To the proud the slightest repulse or disappointment is the last indignity. Votes: 0

To think justly, we must understand what others mean. To know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds. Votes: 0

To-day kings, to-marrow beggars, it is only when they are themselves that they are nothing. Votes: 0

True friendship is self-love at second hand; where, as in a flattering mirror we may see our virtues magnified and our errors softened, and where we may fancy our opinion of ourselves confirmed by an impartial and faithful witness. Votes: 0

True friendship is self-love at second-hand. Votes: 0

True modesty and true pride are much the same thing: both consist in setting a just value on ourselves - neither more nor less. Votes: 0

Truth from the mouth of an honest man and severity from a good-natured man have a double effect. Votes: 0

Vanity does not refer to the opinion a man entertains of himself, but to that which he wishes others to entertain of him. Votes: 0

Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit -- or a mask. . . . The foregoing maxim shows the difference between truth and sarcasm. Votes: 0

Vice is man's nature: virtue is a habit--or a mask. Votes: 0

Vice, like disease, floats in the atmosphere. Votes: 0

Violence ever defeats its own ends. Where you cannot drive you can always persuade. A gentle word, a kind look, a god-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. There is a secret pride in every human heart than revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you. Votes: 0

Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity. Votes: 0

Virtue steals, like a guilty thing, into the secret haunts of vice and infamy, clings to their devoted victim, and will not be driven quite away. Nothing can destroy the human heart. Votes: 0

Vulgar prejudices are those which arise out of accident, ignorance, or authority; natural prejudices are those which arise out of the constitution of the human mind itself. Votes: 0

Walk groundly, talk profoundly, drink roundly, sleep soundly. Votes: 0

We all wear some disguise, make some professions, use some artifice, to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom. Votes: 0

We are all of us, more or less, the slaves of opinion. Votes: 0

We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves. Votes: 0

We are fonder of visiting our friends in health than in sickness. We judge less favorably of their characters when any misfortune happens to them; and a lucky hit, either in business or reputation, improves even their personal appearance in our eyes. Votes: 0

We are governed by sympathy; and the extent of our sympathy is determined by that of our sensibility Votes: 0

We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves. Votes: 0

We are not satisfied to be right, unless we can prove others to be quite wrong. Votes: 0

We are thankful for good-will rather than for services, for the motive than the quantum of favor received. Votes: 0

We can scarcely hate anyone that we know. Votes: 0

We cannot by a little verbal sophistry confound the qualities of different minds, nor force opposite excellences into a union by all the intolerance in the world. ... If we have a taste for some one precise style or manner, we may keep it to ourselves and let others have theirs. If we are more catholic in our notions, and want variety of excellence and beauty, it is spread abroad for us to profusion in the variety of books and in the several growth of men's minds, fettered by no capricious or arbitrary rules. Votes: 0

We do not attend to the advice of the sage and experienced because we think they are old, forgetting that they once were young and placed in the same situations as ourselves. Votes: 0

We do not die wholly at our deaths: we have mouldered away gradually long before. Faculty after faculty, interest after interest, attachment after attachment disappear: we are torn from ourselves while living. Votes: 0

We do not like our friends the worse because they sometimes give us an opportunity to rail at them heartily. Their faults reconcile us to their virtues. Votes: 0

We dread life's termination as the close, not of enjoyment, but of hope. Votes: 0

We go on a journey to be free of all impediments; to leave ourselves behind much more than to get rid of others Votes: 0

We have more faith in a well-written romance while we are reading it than in common history. The vividness of the representations in the one case more than counterbalances the mere knowledge of the truth of facts in the other. Votes: 0

We imagine that the admiration of the works of celebrated men has become common, because the admiration of their names has become so. Votes: 0

We judge of others for the most part by their good opinion of themselves; yet nothing gives such offense or creates so many enemies, as that extreme self-complacency or superciliousness of manner, which appears to set the opinion of every one else at defiance. Votes: 0

We may be willing to tell a story twice, never to hear it more than once. Votes: 0

We must be doing something to be happy. Votes: 0

We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all. Votes: 0

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it. Votes: 0

We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again. Votes: 0

We prefer ourselves to others, only because we a have more intimate consciousness and confirmed opinion of our own claims and merits than of any other person's. Votes: 0

We trifle with, make sport of, and despise those who are attached to us, and follow those that fly from us. Votes: 0

We uniformly applaud what is right and condemn what is wrong, when it costs us nothing but the sentiment. Votes: 0

We would willingly, and without remorse, sacrifice not only the present moment, but all the interval (no matter how long) that separates us from any favorite object. Votes: 0

Weakness has its hidden resources, as well as strength. There is a degree of folly and meanness which we cannot calculate upon, and by which we are as much liable to be foiled as by the greatest ability or courage. Votes: 0

Well I've had a happy life. Votes: 0

What are the publications that succeed? Those that pretend to teach the public that the persons they have been accustomed unwittingly to look up to as the lights of the earth are no better than themselves. Votes: 0

What I mean by living to one's self is living in the world, as in it, not of it. Votes: 0

What I mean by living to one's-self is living in the world, as in it, not of it: it is as if no one know there was such a person, and you wished no one to know it: it is to be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things, not an object of attention or curiosity in it; to take a thoughtful, anxious interest in what is passing in the world, but not to feel the slightest inclination to make or meddle with it. Votes: 0

What is popular is not necessarily vulgar; and that which we try to rescue from fatal obscurity had in general much better remain where it is. Votes: 0

What passes in the world for talent or dexterity or enterprise is often only a want of moral principle. We may succeed where others fail, not from a greater share of invention, but from not being nice in the choice of expedients. Votes: 0

Whatever interests is interesting. Votes: 0

Whatever is placed beyond the reach of sense and knowledge, whatever is imperfectly discerned, the fancy pieces out at its leisure; and all but the present moment, but the present spot, passion claims for its own, and brooding over it with wings outspread, stamps it with an image of itself. Passion is lord of infinite space, and distant objects please because they border on its confines and are moulded by its touch. Votes: 0

When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. Votes: 0

When one can do better than everyone else in the same walk, one does not make any very painful exertions to outdo oneself. The progress of improvement ceases nearly at the point where competition ends. Votes: 0

When the imagination is continually led to the brink of vice by a system of terror and denunciations, people fling themselves over the precipice from the mere dread of falling. Votes: 0

When we hear complaints of the wretchedness or vanity of human life, the proper answer to them would be that there is hardly any one who at some point or other has not been in love. If we consider the high abstraction of this feeling, its depth, its purity, its voluptuous refinement, even in the meanest breast, how sacred and how sweet it is, this alone may reconcile us to the lot of humanity. That drop of balm turns the bitter cup to a delicious nectar. Votes: 0

While we desire, we do not enjoy; and with enjoyment desire ceases. Votes: 0

Who likes not his business, his business likes not him. Votes: 0

Wit is the rarest quality to be met with among people of education, and the most common among the uneducated. Votes: 0

Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference. Votes: 0

With women, the great business of life is love; and they generally make a mistake in it. They consult neither the heart nor the head, but are led away by mere humour and fancy. If instead of a companion for life, they had to choose a partner in a country-dance or to trifle away an hour with, their mode of calculation would be right. They tie their true-lover's knot with idle, thoughtless haste, while the institutions of society render it indissoluble. Votes: 0

Within my heart is lurking suspicion, and base fear, and shame and hate; but above all, tyrannous love sits throned, crowned with her graces, silent and in tears. Votes: 0

Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room. Votes: 0

Women never reason, and therefore they are (comparatively) seldom wrong. Votes: 0

Wonder at the first sight of works of art may be the effect of ignorance and novelty; but real admiration and permanent delight in them are the growth of taste and knowledge. Votes: 0

Words are the only things that last for ever. Votes: 0

Wrong dressed out in pride, pomp, and circumstance has more attraction than abstract right. Votes: 0

You are never tired of painting, because you have to set down not what you know already, but what you have just discovered. Votes: 0

You shall yourself be judge. Reason, with most people, means their own opinion. Votes: 0