Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Many a man may thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever been able to return the compliment by thanking his rank for his talent.
No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.
Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.
The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.
Pride, like the magnet, constantly points to one object, self; but, unlike the magnet, it has no attractive pole, but at all points repels.
There are only two things in which the false professors of all religions have agreed--to persecute all other sects and to plunder their own.
Our incomes should be like our shoes; if too small, they will gall and pinch us; but if too large, they will cause us to stumble and to trip.
The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.
If sensuality be our only happiness we ought to envy the brutes, for instinct is a surer, shorter, safer guide to such happiness than reason.
Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
He [the miser] falls down and worships the god of this world, but will have neither its pomps, its vanities nor its pleasures for his trouble.
Words indeed are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent.
The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.
The young fancy that their follies are mistaken by the old for happiness. The old fancy that their gravity is mistaken by the young for wisdom.
Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by reputation, approved by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment.
Taking things not as they ought to be, but as they are, I fear it must be allowed that Macchiavelli will always have more disciples than Jesus.
Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.
There are both dull correctness and piquant carelessness; it is needless to say which will command the most readers and have the most influence.
We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.
Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominates it is passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual.
Secrecy is the soul of all great designs. Perhaps more has been effected by concealing our own intentions than by discovering those of our enemy.
Cruel men are the greatest lovers of Mercy, avaricious men of generosity, and proud men of humility; that is to say, in other, not in themselves.
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
In religion as in politics it so happens that we have less charity for those who believe half our creed, than for those who deny the whole of it.
Some indeed there are who profess to despise all flattery, but even these are nevertheless to be flattered, by being told that they do despise it.
It is easier to pretend to be what you are not than to hide what you really are; but he that can accomplish both has little to learn in hypocrisy.
Shining outward qualities, although they may excite first-rate expectations, are not unusually found to be the companions of second-rate abilities.
Injuries accompanied with insults are never forgiven: all men, on these occasions, are good haters, and lay out their revenge at compound interest.
The science of legislation is like that of medicine in one respect: that it is far more easy to point out what will do harm than what will do good.
Custom looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present, but both of them are somewhat purblind as to things that are to come.
There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme!
To admit that there is any such thing as chance, in the common acceptation of the term, would be to attempt to establish a power independent of God.
Speaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants--both know too much of him.
To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports us - when we succeed, it betrays us.
Courage is like the diamond,--very brilliant; not changed by fire, capable of high polish, but except for the purpose of cutting hard bodies useless.
Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity.
There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it.
He that openly tells, his friends all that he thinks of them, must expect that they will secretly tell his enemies much that they do not think of him.
We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine, but if defer tasting them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
No disorders have employed so many quacks, as those that have no cure; and no sciences have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty.
Calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains and traverses deserts, with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow.
Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals, and follows them to the grave
The greatest and most amiable privilege which the rich enjoy over the poor is that which they exercise the least--the privilege of making others happy.
When we feel a strong desire to thrust our advice upon others, it is usually because we suspect their weakness; but we ought rather to suspect our own.
The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health and power.
The road to glory would cease to be arduous if it were trite and trodden; and great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities but to make them.
Those that will not permit their wealth to do any good for others. . . cut themselves off from the truest pleasure here and the highest happiness later.
There are many women who have never intrigued, and many men who have never gamed; but those who have done either but once are very extraordinary animals.
Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.
Light, whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer; for it prevents those disorders which other remedies sometimes cure, but sometimes confirm.