Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.
The history of nations, in the sense in which I use the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical.
We never could clearly understand how it is that egotism, so unpopular in conversation, should be so popular in writing.
Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack; But those behind cried "Forward!" And those before cried "Back!
What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!
Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.
Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions.
A Grecian history, perfectly written should be a complete record of the rise and progress of poetry, philosophy, and the arts.
Grief, which disposes gentle natures to retirement, to inaction, and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more restless.
A church is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favored and cherished.
I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.
There is no country in Europe which is so easy to over-run as Spain; there is no country which it is more difficult to conquer.
If ever Shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along.
With respect to the doctrine of a future life, a North American Indian knows just as much as any ancient or modern philosopher.
The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little.
The ascendency of the sacerdotal order was long the ascendency which naturally and properly belonged to intellectual superiority.
Those who seem to load the public taste are, in general, merely outrunning it in the direction which it is spontaneously pursuing.
The upper current of society presents no pertain criterion by which we can judge of the direction in which the under current flows.
Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularity is indispensable to the creations of the imagination.
Our judgment ripens; our imagination decays. We cannot at once enjoy the flowers of the Spring of life and the fruits of its Autumn.
That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it.
Great minds do indeed react on the society which has made them what they are; but they only pay with interest what they have received.
I have seen the hippopotamus, both asleep and awake; and I can assure you that, awake or asleep, he is the ugliest of the works of God.
In perseverance, in self command, in forethought, in all virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed.
The Saviour of mankind Himself, in whose blameless life malice could find no act to impeach, has been called in question for words spoken.
Man is so inconsistent a creature that it is impossible to reason from his beliefs to his conduct, or from one part of his belief to another.
We are free, we are civilised, to little purpose, if we grudge to any portion of the human race an equal measure of freedom and civilisation.
Ambrose Phillips . . . who had the honor of bringing into fashion a species of composition which has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby.
In the plays of Shakespeare man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions which contend for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn.
We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary.
Men naturally sympathize with the calamities of individuals; but they are inclined to look on a fallen party with contempt rather than with pity.
Sense can support herself handsomely in most countries on some eighteen pence a day; but for fantasy, planets and solar systems, will not suffice.
I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.
We must succumb to the general influence of the times. No man can be of the tenth century, if he would; be must be a man of the nineteenth century.
There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.
Byron owed the vast influence which he exercised over his contemporaries at least as much to his gloomy egotism as to the real power of his poetry.
The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally.
Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources.
In employing fiction to make truth clear and goodness attractive, we are only following the example which every Christian ought to propose to himself.
How it chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises so ably, should assume his premises so foolishly, is one of the great mysteries of human nature.
In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence of public works, the ancients were at least our equals.
Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages.
The English Bible - a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.
Only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they profess, and act up to all that they believe!
People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.
The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very materially influenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who assume a right to criticize.
The passages in which Milton has alluded to his own circumstances are perhaps read more frequently, and with more interest, than any other lines in his poems.
And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?
It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.
A man who should act, for one day, on the supposition that all the people about him were influenced by the religion which they professed would find himself ruined by night.