Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Speak briefly and to the point.
A honest man is seldom a vagrant.
In doing nothing men learn to do evil.
You, boy, who owe everything to a name
My taste includes both snails and oysters.
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar
Don't promise twice what you can do at once.
Never travel by sea when you can go by land.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.
I think the first wisdom is to restrain the tongue.
Bitter are the roots of study, but how sweet their fruit.
Greed is but a word jealous men inflict upon the ambitious.
Wise men are more dependent on fools than fools on wise men.
All have the gift of speech, but few are possessed of wisdom.
In conversation avoid the extremes of forwardness and reserve.
Consider it the greatest of all virtues to restrain the tongue.
Flee sloth; for the indolence of the soul is the decay of the body.
The best way to keep good acts in memory is to refresh them with new.
Regard not dreams, since they are but the images of our hopes and fears.
By all means must we fly; not with our feet, however, but with our hands.
Virtue, vain word, futile shadow, slave of chance! Alas! I believe in thee!
Those magistrates who can prevent crime, and do not, in effect encourage it.
I will begin to speak, when I have that to say which had not better be unsaid.
The primary virtue is: hold your tongue; who knows how to keep quiet is close to God.
I know not what treason is, if sapping and betraying the liberties of a people be not treason.
I shall be a good politician. Even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else, for that matter.
Consider in silence whatever any one says: speech both conceals and reveals the inner soul of man.
Blessed be they as virtuous, who when they feel their virile members swollen with lust, visit a brothel rather than grind at some husband's private mill.
For some people there is no comfort without pain. Thus; we define salvation through suffering. Hence, why we choose people who we know aren't right for ourselves.
Good-breeding is the art of showing men, by external signs, the internal regard we have for them. It arises from good sense, improved by conversing with good company.
The origin of society, then, is to be sought, not in any natural right which one man has to exercise authority over another, but in the united consent of those who associate.
I would not be beholden to a tyrant, for his acts of tyranny. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as their rightful lord, the lives of men over whom he has no title to reign.
Should anyone attempt to deceive you by false expressions, and not be a true friend at heart, act in the same manner, and thus art will defeat art. [If you would catch a man let him think he is catching you.]
What can be happier than for a man, conscious of virtuous acts, and content with liberty, to despise all human affairs? [Lat., Quid enim est melius quam memoria recte factorum, et libertate contentum negligere humana?]
The object of every free government is the public good, and all lesser interests yield to it. That of every tyrannical government, is the happiness and aggrandizement of one, or a few, and to this the public felicity, and every other interest must submit.
It is remarkable that men, when they differ in what they think considerable, will be apt to differ in almost everything else; their difference begets contradiction; contradiction begets heat; heat quickly rises into resentment, rage, and ill-will; thus they differ in affections, as they differ in judgment.
This is my firm persuasion, that since the human soul exerts itself with so great activity, since it has such a remembrance of the best, such a concern for the future, since it is enriched with so many arts, sciences, and discoveries, it is impossible but the being which contains all these must be immortal.
I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge. If this be a just remark, it is unwise and improvident to vest in the general government a power to borrow at discretion, without any limitation or restriction.
The cabbage surpasses all other vegetables. If, at a banquet, you wish to dine a lot and enjoy your dinner, then eat as much cabbage as you wish, seasoned with vinegar, before dinner, and likewise after dinner eat some half-dozen leaves. It will make you feel as if you had not eaten, and you can drink as much as you like.
Some have said that it is not the business of private men to meddle with government--a bold and dishonest saying, which is fit to come from no mouth but that of a tyrant or a slave. To say that private men have nothing to do with government is to say that private men have nothing to do with their own happiness or misery; that people ought not to concern themselves whether they be naked or clothed, fed or starved, deceived or instructed, protected or destroyed.
By Liberty I understand the Power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys. The Fruits of a Man's honest Industry are the just Rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner which he thinks fit: And thus, with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbitrer of his own private Actions and Property.