Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.
Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them.
Modesty is the richest ornament of a woman ... the want of it is her greatest deformity.
It is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb.
Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber and takes out our brains to make room for it.
That is fine benevolence, finely executed, which, like the Nile, comes from hidden sources.
Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good.
It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave, than to expend it, like a gentleman.
Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error.
Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse.
The most consistent men are not more unlike to others, than they are at times to themselves.
Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.
We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.
It is an easy and vulgar thing to please the mob, and no very arduous task to astonish them.
It is astonishing how much more people are interested in lengthening life than improving it.
It is a common observation that any fool can get money; but they are not wise that think so.
The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.
Subtract from many modern poets all that may be found in Shakespeare, and trash will remain.
We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.
It is good to act as if. It is even better to grow to the point where it is no longer an act.
Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun, and the two are never far apart.
The hate which we all bear with the most Christian patience is the hate of those who envy us.
There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.
There is this paradox in fear: he is most likely to inspire it in others who has none himself!
We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit.
He that has never suffered extreme adversity knows not the full extent of his own depravation.
We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them.
Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.
It is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us than the powerful whom we have injured.
False reasoners are often best confuted by giving them the full swing of their own absurdities.
The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.
He that sympathizes in all the happiness of others, perhaps himself enjoys the safest happiness.
There are some men who are fortune's favorites, and who, like cats, light forever on their legs.
The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.
The upright, if he suffer calumny to move him, fears the tongue of man more than the eye of God.
All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, by by rising above them.
Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.
Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.
The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.
If the prodigal quits life in debt to others, the miser quits it still deeper in debt to himself.
Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.
I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.
Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.
Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.
The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.