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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.

-William Hazlitt

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A Taste For Liberal

William Hazlitt

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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.

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Popularity Is Neither Fame Nor Greatness.

Horus Non Numero Nisi Serenas (i Count Only The Sunny Hours).

Many A Man Would Have Turned Rogue If He Knew How.

The More You Do, The More You Can Do.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Our Contempt For Others Proves Nothing But The Illiberality And Narrowness Of Our Own Views.

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.

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?

As Hypocrisy Is Said To Be The Highest Compliment To Virtue, The Art Of Lying Is The Strongest Acknowledgment Of The Force Of Truth.

I Have A Much Greater Ambition To Be The Best Racket Player Than The Best Prose Writer.

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.

Honesty Is One Part Of Eloquence. We Persuade Others By Being In Earnest Ourselves.

Wrong Dressed Out In Pride, Pomp, And Circumstance Has More Attraction Than Abstract Right.

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.

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.

The Corpse Of Friendship Is Not Worth Embalming.

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.

He Who Draws Upon His Own Resources Easily Comes To An End Of His Wealth.

The Truly Proud Man Knows Neither Superiors Or Inferiors. The First He Does Not Admit Of - The Last He Does Not Concern Himself About.

Knowledge Is Pleasure As Well As Power.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Those Who Have Little Shall Have Less, And That Those Who Have Much Shall Take All That Others Have Left.

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.

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.

Envy Is Littleness Of Soul.

Those Who Object To Wit Are Envious Of It.

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.

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.

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.

A Hypocrite Despises Those Whom He Deceives, But Has No Respect For Himself. He Would Make A Dupe Of Himself Too, If He Could.

A Man's Reputation Is Not In His Own Keeping, But Lies At The Mercy Of The Profligacy Of Others. Calumny Requires No Proof.

To Think Ill Of Mankind And Not Wish Ill To Them, Is Perhaps The Highest Wisdom And Virtue.

Genius Only Leaves Behind It The Monuments Of Its Strength.

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.

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.

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.

We Can Scarcely Hate Anyone That We Know.

We Are Very Much What Others Think Of Us. The Reception Our Observations Meet With Gives Us Courage To Proceed, Or Damps Our Efforts.

He Who Undervalues Himself Is Justly Undervalued By Others.

The Person Whose Doors I Enter With Most Pleasure, And Quit With Most Regret, Never Did Me The Smallest Favor.

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.

We Can Bear To Be Deprived Of Everything But Our Self-conceit.

The Worst Old Age Is That Of The Mind.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Without The Aid Of Prejudice And Custom, I Should Not Be Able To Find My Way Across The Room.

An Honest Man Is Respected By All Parties.

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.

The Vices Are Never So Well Employed As In Combating One Another.

It Is Hard For Any One To Be An Honest Politician Who Is Not Born And Bred A Dissenter.

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.

Power Is Pleasure; And Pleasure Sweetens Pain.

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.

Men Are In Numberless Instances Qualified For Certain Things, For No Other Reason Than Because They Are Qualified For Nothing Else.

By Despising All That Has Preceded Us, We Teach Others To Despise Ourselves.

Conceit Is Vanity Driven From All Other Shifts, And Forced To Appeal To Itself For Admiration.

Our Friends Are Generally Ready To Do Everything For Us, Except The Very Thing We Wish Them To Do.

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.

If We Are Long Absent From Our Friends, We Forget Them; If We Are Constantly With Them, We Despise Them.

We Never Do Anything Well Till We Cease To Think About The Manner Of Doing It.

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.

Confidence Gives A Fool The Advantage Over A Wise Man.

The Greatest Reverses Of Fortune Are The Most Easily Borne From A Sort Of Dignity Belonging To Them.

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.

The Title Of Ultracrepidarian Critics Has Been Given To Those Persons Who Find Fault With Small And Insignificant Details.

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.

Books Wind Into The Heart.

Friendship Is Cemented By Interest, Vanity, Or The Want Of Amusement; It Seldom Implies Esteem, Or Even Mutual Regard.

Violent Antipathies Are Always Suspicious, And Betray A Secret Affinity.

The Only Vice That Cannot Be Forgiven Is Hypocrisy. The Repentance Of A Hypocrite Is Itself Hypocrisy.

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.

The Way To Procure Insults Is To Submit To Them. A Man Meets With No More Respect Than He Exacts.

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.

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.

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.

To A Superior Race Of Being The Pretensions Of Mankind To Extraordinary Sanctity And Virtue Must Seem... Ridiculous.

A Mighty Stream Of Tendency.

No One Ever Approaches Perfection Except By Stealth, And Unknown To Themselves.

Love And Joy Are Twins Or Born Of Each Other.

Vice, Like Disease, Floats In The Atmosphere.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But Of All Footmen The Lowest Class Is Literary Footmen.

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.

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.

Repose Is As Necessary In Conversation As In A Picture.

Great Thoughts Reduced To Practice Become Great Acts.

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.

The English (it Must Be Owned) Are Rather A Foul-mouthed Nation.

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.

If You Give An Audience A Chance They Will Do Half Your Acting For You.

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.

The More A Man Writes, The More He Can Write.

None But Those Who Are Happy In Themselves Can Make Others So.

We Grow Tired Of Everything But Turning Others Into Ridicule, And Congratulating Ourselves On Their Defects.

As We Are Poetical In Our Natures, So We Delight In Fable.

Nothing Is More Unjust Or Capricious Than Public Opinion.

Vanity Does Not Refer To The Opinion A Man Entertains Of Himself, But To That Which He Wishes Others To Entertain Of Him.

The More We Do, The More We Can Do; The More Busy We Are, The More Leisure We Have.

Leisure Activities

Faith Is Necessary To Victory.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Thought Must Tell At Once, Or Not At All.

Good Temper Is An Estate For Life.

A Man Who Is Determined Never To Move Out Of The Beaten Road Cannot Lose His Way.

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.

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.

The More We Do, The More We Can Do.

Leisure Activities

Famous Motivational

When I Am In The Country, I Wish To Vegetate Like The Country.

All Is Without Form And Void. Someone Said Of His Landscapes That They Were Pictures Of Nothing And Very Like.

Death Puts An End To Rivalship And Competition. The Dead Can Boast No Advantage Over Us, Nor Can We Triumph Over Them.

Pride Goes Before A Fall, They Say, And Yet We Often Find, The Folks Who Throw All Pride Away Most Often Fall Behind.

Those Only Deserve A Monument Who Do Not Need One.

Sincerity Has To Do With The Connexion Between Our Words And Thoughts, And Not Between Our Beliefs And Actions.

Grace In Women Has More Effect Than Beauty.

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.

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.

There Is No Prejudice So Strong As That Which Arises From A Fancied Exemption From All Prejudice.

Experience Makes Us Wise.

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.

To Display The Greatest Powers, Unless They Are Applied To Great Purposes, Makes Nothing For The Character Of Greatness.

You Are Never Tired Of Painting, Because You Have To Set Down Not What You Know Already, But What You Have Just Discovered.

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.

Keep Your Misfortunes To Yourself.

The Art Of Pleasing Consists In Being Pleased.

Familiarity Confounds All Traits Of Distinction; Interest And Prejudice Take Away The Power Of Judging.

It Is Better To Drink Of Deep Grief Than To Taste Shallow Pleasures.

Habit Is Necessary To Give Power.

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.

We Can Be Said Only To Fulfil Our Destiny In The Place That Gave Us Birth. I Should On This Account Like Well Enough To Spend The Whole Of My Life In Travelling Abroad, If I Could Anywhere Borrow Another Life To Spend Afterwards At Home!

It May Be Made A Question Whether Men Grow Wiser As They Grow Older, Anymore Than They Grow Stronger Or Healthier Or Honest.

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.

They Are The Only Honest Hypocrites, Their Life Is A Voluntary Dream, A Studied Madness.

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.

Men Will Die For An Opinion As Soon As For Anything Else.

Man Is A Poetical Animal, And Delights In Fiction.

Learning Is The Knowledge Of That Which None But The Learned Know.

Hope Is The Best Possession.

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.

The Most Silent People Are Generally Those Who Think Most Highly Of Themselves.

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.

They [corporations] Feel Neither Shame, Remorse, Gratitude, Nor Goodwill.

We Must Overact Our Part In Some Measure, In Order To Produce Any Effect At All.

An Orator Can Hardly Get Beyond Commonplaces: If He Does He Gets Beyond His Hearers.

Public Speaking

Those Who Are At War With Others Are Not At Peace With Themselves.

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.

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.

A Knave Thinks Himself A Fool, All The Time He Is Not Making A Fool Of Some Other Person.

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.

Our Repugnance To Death Increases In Proportion To Our Consciousness Of Having Lived In Vain.

It Is Better To Be Able Neither To Read Nor Write Than To Be Able To Do Nothing Else.

I Am Then Never Less Alone Than When Alone

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.

Love Turns, With A Little Indulgence, To Indifference Or Disgust; Hatred Alone Is Immortal.

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.

Fashion Is Gentility Running Away From Vulgarity And Afraid Of Being Overtaken

Life Is The Art Of Being Well Deceived; And In Order That The Deception May Succeed It Must Be Habitual And Uninterrupted.

The Only Impeccable Writers Are Those Who Never Wrote.

The Greatest Grossness Sometimes Accompanies The Greatest Refinement, As A Natural Relief.

The Most Violent Friendships Soonest Wear Themselves Out.

The Soul Of Dispatch Is Decision.

Dandyism Is A Species Of Genius.

Women Never Reason, And Therefore They Are (comparatively) Seldom Wrong.

To Think Justly, We Must Understand What Others Mean. To Know The Value Of Our Thoughts, We Must Try Their Effect On Other Minds.

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.

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.

Without Life There Can Be No Action — No Objects Of Pursuit — No Restless Desires — No Tormenting Passions. Hence It Is That We Fondly Cling To It — That We Dread Its Termination As The Close, Not Of Enjoyment, But Of Hope.

The Silence Of A Friend Commonly Amounts To Treachery. His Not Daring To Say Anything In Our Behalf Implies A Tacit Censure.

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?

Nothing Precludes Sympathy So Much As A Perfect Indifference To It

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.

Cowardice Is Not Synonymous With Prudence. It Often Happens That The Better Part Of Discretion Is Valor.

The World Dread Nothing So Much As Being Convinced Of Their Errors.

Life Is The Art Of Being Well Deceived.

There Are No Rules For Friendship. It Must Be Left To Itself. We Cannot Force It Any More Than Love.

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.

To Be Remembered After We Are Dead, Is But Poor Recompense For Being Treated With Contempt While We Are Living.

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?

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.

To Impress The Idea Of Power On Others, They Must Be Made In Some Way To Feel It.

I Like A Friend The Better For Having Faults That One Can Talk About.

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.

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?

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.

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.

A Thing Is Not Vulgar Merely Because It Is Common.

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.

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