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Be Assured That, Although Men Of Eminent Genius Have Been Guilty Of All Other Vices, None Worthy Of More Than A Secondary Name Has Ever Been A Gamester. Either An Excess Of Avarice Or A Deficiency Of What, In Physics, Is Called Excitability, Is The Cause Of It; Neither Of Which Can Exist In The Same Bosom With Genius, With Patriotism, Or With Virtue.

-Walter Savage Landor

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Be Assured That, Although

Walter Savage Landor

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Be Assured That, Although Men Of Eminent Genius Have Been Guilty Of All Other Vices, None Worthy Of More Than A Secondary Name Has Ever Been A Gamester. Either An Excess Of Avarice Or A Deficiency Of What, In Physics, Is Called Excitability, Is The Cause Of It; Neither Of Which Can Exist In The Same Bosom With Genius, With Patriotism, Or With Virtue.

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It Appears To Be Among The Laws Of Nature, That The Mighty Of Intellect Should Be Pursued And Carped By The Little, As The Solitary Flight Of One Great Bird Is Followed By The Twittering Petulance Of Many Smaller.

There Is No More Certain Sign Of A Narrow Mind, Of Stupidity, And Of Arrogance, Than To Stand Aloof From Those Who Think Differently From Us.

Nature I Loved, And Next To Nature, Art.

Consciousness Of Error Is, To A Certain Extent, A Consciousness Of Understanding; And Correction Of Error Is The Plainest Proof Of Energy And Mastery.

Ambition Is But Avarice On Stilts, And Masked. God Sometimes Sends A Famine, Sometimes A Pestilence, And Sometimes A Hero, For The Chastisement Of Mankind; None Of Them Surely For Our Admiration.

The Deafest Man Can Hear Praise, And Is Slow To Think Any An Excess.

The Tomb Is The Pedestal Of Greatness. I Make A Distinction Between God's Great And The King's Great.

I Have Since Written What No Tide Shall Ever Wash Away, What Men Unborn Shall Read O'er Ocean Wide And Find Ianthe's Name Agen.

Why Cannot We Be Delighted With An Author, And Even Feel A Predilection For Him, Without A Dislike Of Others? An Admiration Of Catullus Or Virgil, Of Tibullus Or Ovid, Is Never To Be Heightened By A Discharge Of Bile On Horace.

Other Offences, Even The Greatest, Are The Violation Of One Law: Despotism Is The Violation Of All.

Everything That Looks To The Future Elevates Human Nature.

Heat And Animosity, Contest And Conflict, May Sharpen The Wits, Although They Rarely Do; They Never Strengthen The Understanding, Clear The Perspicacity, Guide The Judgment, Or Improve The Heart.

Be Assured That, Although Men Of Eminent Genius Have Been Guilty Of All Other Vices, None Worthy Of More Than A Secondary Name Has Ever Been A Gamester. Either An Excess Of Avarice Or A Deficiency Of What, In Physics, Is Called Excitability, Is The Cause Of It; Neither Of Which Can Exist In The Same Bosom With Genius, With Patriotism, Or With Virtue.

Music Is God's Gift To Man, The Only Art Of Heaven Given To Earth, The Only Art Of Earth We Take To Heaven.

No Truer Word, Save God's, Was Ever Spoken, Than That The Largest Heart Is Soonest Broken.

A Smile Is Ever The Most Bright And Beautiful With A Tear Upon It. What Is The Dawn Without The Dew? The Tear Is Rendered By The Smile Precious Above The Smile Itself.

If There Were No Falsehood In The World, There Would Be No Doubt, If There Were No Doubt, There Would Be No Inquiry; If No Inquiry, No Wisdom, No Knowledge, No Genius; And Fancy Herself Would Lie Muffled Up In Her Robe, Inactive, Pale, And Bloated.

In Honest Truth, A Name Given To A Man Is No Better Than A Skin Given To Him; What Is Not Natively His Own Falls Off And Comes To Nothing.

Wise Or Unwise, Who Doubts For A Moment That Contentment Is The Cause Of Happiness? Yet The Inverse Is True: We Are Contented Because We Are Happy, And Not Happy Because We Are Contented. Well-regulated Minds May Be Satisfied With A Small Portion Of Happiness; None Can Be Happy With A Small Portion Of Content.

I Strove With None; For None Was Worth My Strife.

A Little Praise Is Good For A Shy Temper; It Teaches It To Rely On The Kindness Of Others.

Truth Sometimes Corner Unawares Upon Caution, And Sometimes Speaks In Public As Unconsciously As In A Dream.

Absurdities Are Great Or Small In Proportion To Custom Or Insuetude.

Friendship May Sometimes Step A Few Paces In Advance Of Truth.

That Which Moveth The Heart Most Is The Best Poetry; It Comes Nearest Unto God, The Source Of All Power.

Principles Do Not Mainly Influence Even The Principled; We Talk On Principle, But We Act On Interest.

I Delight In The Diffusion Of Learning; Yet, I Must Confess It, I Am Most Gratified And Transported At Finding A Large Quantity Of It In One Place; Just As I Would Rather Have A Solid Pat Of Butter At Breakfast, Than A Splash Of Grease Upon The Table-cloth That Covers Half Of It.

It Is Easy To Look Down On Others; To Look Down On Ourselves Is The Difficulty.

Cruelty, If We Consider It As A Crime, Is The Greatest Of All; If We Consider It As A Madness, We Are Equally Justifiable In Applying To It The Readiest And The Surest Means Of Oppression.

We Must Distinguish Between Felicity And Prosperity; For Prosperity Leads Often To Ambition, And Ambition To Disappointment; The Course Is Then Over, The Wheel Turns Round But Once, While The Reaction Of Goodness And Happiness Is Perpetual.

Old Trees In Their Living State Are The Only Things That Money Cannot Command.

The Flame Of Anger, Bright And Brief, Sharpens The Barb Of Love.

The Happy Never Say, And Never Hear Said, Farewell.

Political Men, Like Goats, Usually Thrive Best Among Inequalities.

Those Who Speak Against The Great Do Not Usually Speak From Morality, But From Envy.

And Modesty, Who, When She Goes, Is Gone For Ever.

Modesty And Diffidence Make A Man Unfit For Public Affairs; They Also Make Him Unfit For Brothels.

I See The Rainbow In The Sky, The Dew Upon The Grass; I See Them, And I Ask Not Why They Glimmer Or They Pass. With Folded Arms I Linger Not To Call Them Back; 'twere Vain: In This, Or In Some Other Spot, I Know They'll Shine Again.

Fleas Know Not Whether They Are Upon The Body Of A Giant Or Upon One Of Ordinary Size.

An Ingenious Mind Feels In Unmerited Praise The Bitterest Reproof.

The Most Pernicious Of Absurdities Is That Weak, Blind, Stupid Faith Is Better Than The Constant Practice Of Every Human Virtue.

We Cannot At Once Catch The Applauses Of The Vulgar And Expect The Approbation Of The Wise.

The Vain Poet Is Of The Opinion That Nothing Of His Can Be Too Much: He Sends To You Basketful After Basketful Of Juiceless Fruit, Covered With Scentless Flowers.

Cats Ask Plainly For What They Want.

Life Is But Sighs; And, When They Cease, 'tis Over.

We Fancy That Our Afflictions Are Sent Us Directly From Above; Sometimes We Think It In Piety And Contrition, But Oftener In Moroseness And Discontent.

Death Stands Above Me, Whispering Low I Know Not What Into My Ear; Of His Strange Language All I Know Is, There Is Not A Word Of Fear.

When The Mind Loses Its Feeling For Elegance, It Grows Corrupt And Groveling, And Seeks In The Crowd What Ought To Be Found At Home.

Fame Often Rests At First Upon Something Accidental, And Often, Too, Is Swept Away, Or For A Time Removed; But Neither Genius Nor Glory, Is Conferred At Once, Nor Do They Glimmer And Fall, Like Drops In A Grotto, At A Shout.

The Sweetest Souls, Like The Sweetest Flowers, Soon Canker In Cities, And No Purity Is Rarer There Than The Purity Of Delight.

No Friendship Is So Cordial Or So Delicious As That Of Girl For Girl; No Hatred So Intense And Immovable As That Of Woman For Woman.

The Assailant Is Often In The Right; That The Assailed Is Always.

Those Who Are Quite Satisfied Sit Still And Do Nothing; Those Who Are Not Quite Satisfied Are The Sole Benefactors Of The World.

Friendships Are The Purer And The More Ardent, The Nearer They Come To The Presence Of God, The Sun Not Only Of Righteousness But Of Love.

A Critic Is Never Too Severe When He Only Detects The Faults Of An Author. But He Is Worse Than Too Severe When, In Consequence Of This Detection, Be Presumes To Place Himself On A Level With Genius.

Consult Duty Not Events.

Immoderate Power, Like Other Intemperance, Leaves The Progeny Weaker And Weaker, Until Nature As In Compassion Covers It With Her Mantle And It Is Seen No More.

We Enter Our Studies, And Enjoy A Society Which We Alone Can Bring Together. We Raise No Jealousy By Conversing With One In Preference To Another; We Give No Offence To The Most Illustrious By Questioning Him As Long As We Will, And Leaving Him As Abruptly. Diversity Of Opinion Raises No Tumult In Our Presence: Each Interlocutor Stands Before Us, Speaks Or Is Silent, And We Adjourn Or Decide The Business At Our Leisure.

Greatness, As We Daily See It, Is Unsociable.

Great Men Always Pay Deference To Greater.

Do Not Expect To Be Acknowledged For What You Are, Much Less For What You Would Be; Since No One Can Well Measure A Great Man But Upon The Bier.

A Wise Man Will Always Be A Christian, Because The Perfection Of Wisdom Is To Know Where Lies Tranquillity Of Mind And How To Attain It, Which Christianity Teaches.

Patience, Piety, And Salutary Knowledge Spring Up And Ripen Under The Harrow Of Affliction; Before There Is Wine Or Oil, The Grape Must Be Trodden And The Oil Pressed.

Of All Studies, The Most Delightful And The Most Useful Is Biography. The Seeds Of Great Events Lie Near The Surface; Historians Delve Too Deep For Them. No History Was Ever True. Lives I Have Read Which, If They Were Not, Had The Appearance, The Interest, And The Utility Of Truth.

O Music! How It Grieves Me That Imprudence, Intemperance, Gluttony, Should Open Their Channels Into Thy Sacred Stream.

We May Receive So Much Light As Not To See, And So Much Philosophy As To Be Worse Than Foolish.

Goodness Does Not More Certainly Make Men Happy Than Happiness Makes Them Good.

Every Witticism Is An Inexact Thought; That Which Is Perfectly True Is Imperfectly Witty.

God Scatters Beauty As He Scatters Flowers O'er The Wide Earth, And Tells Us All Are Ours. A Hundred Lights In Every Temple Burn, And At Each Shrine I Bend My Knee In Turn.

Authors Are Like Cattle Going To A Fair: Those Of The Same Field Can Never Move On Without Butting One Another.

Something Of The Severe Hath Always Been Appertaining To Order And To Grace; And The Beauty That Is Not Too Liberal Is Sought The Most Ardently, And Loved The Longest.

Wherever There Is Excessive Wealth, There Is Also In The Train Of It Excessive Poverty.

Religion Is The Eldest Sister Of Philosophy: On Whatever Subjects They May Differ, It Is Unbecoming In Either To Quarrel, And Most So About Their Inheritance.

No Thoroughly Occupied Person Was Ever Found Really Miserable.

We Cannot Conquer Fate And Necessity, Yet We Can Yield To Them In Such A Manner As To Be Greater Than If We Could.

Contentment Is Better Than Divinations Or Visions.

Tyrants Never Perish From Tyranny, But Always From Folly,-when Their Fantasies Have Built Up A Palace For Which The Earth Has No Foundation.

Shakespeare Is Not Our Poet, But The World's.

Even The Weakest Disputant Is Made So Conceited By What He Calls Religion, As To Think Himself Wiser Than The Wisest Who Thinks Differently From Him.

The Happiest Of Pillows Is Not That Which Love First Presses! It Is That Which Death Has Frowned On And Passed Over.

Democracy Is Always The Work Of Kings. Ashes, Which In Themselves Are Sterile, Fertilize The Land They Are Cast Upon.

The Worse Of Ingratitude Lies Not In The Ossified Heart Of Him Who Commits It, But We Find It In The Effect It Produces On Him Against Whom It Was Committed.

Fancy Is Imagination In Her Youth And Adolescence. Fancy Is Always Excursive; Imagination, Not Seldom, Is Sedate.

The Wise Become As The Unwise In The Enchanted Chambers Of Power, Whose Lamps Make Every Face The Same Colour.

There Is A Gravity Which Is Not Austere Nor Captious, Which Belongs Not To Melancholy Nor Dwells In Contraction Of Heart: But Arises From Tenderness And Hangs Upon Reflection.

Next In Criminality To Him Who Violates The Laws Of His Country, Is He Who Violates The Language.

In The Hours Of Distress And Misery, The Eyes Of Every Mortal Turn To Friendship; In The Hours Of Gladness And Conviviality, What Is Our Want? It Is Friendship. When The Heart Overflows With Gratitude, Or With Any Other Sweet Or Sacred Sentiment, What Is The Word To Which It Would Give Utterance? A Friend.

A Great Man Knows The Value Of Greatness; He Dares Not Hazard It, He Will Not Squander It.

Fame, They Tell You, Is Air; But Without Air There Is No Life For Any; Without Fame There Is None For The Best.

The Heart That Once Has Been Bathed In Love's Pure Fountain Retains The Pulse Of Youth Forever.

Harmonious Words Render Ordinary Ideas Acceptable; Less Ordinary, Pleasant; Novel And Ingenious Ones, Delightful. As Pictures And Statues, And Living Beauty, Too, Show Better By Music-light, So Is Poetry Irradiated, Vivified, Glorified', And Raised Into Immortal Life By Harmony.

It Often Comes Into My Head That We May Dream When We Are Dead, But I Am Far From Sure We Do. O That It Were So! Then My Rest Would Be Indeed Among The Blest; I Should For Ever Dream Of You.

I Warmed Both Hands Before The Fire Of Life; It Sinks, And I Am Ready To Depart.

Circumstances Form The Character; But, Like Petrifying Matters, They Harden While They Form.

But I Have Sinuous Shells Of Pearly Hue Within, And They That Lustre Have Imbibed In The Sun's Palace-porch, Where When Unyoked Chariot-wheel Stands Midway In The Wave: Shake One, And It Awakens; Then Apply Its Polisht Lips To Your Attentive Ear, And It Remembers Its August Abodes, And Murmurs As The Ocean Murmurs There.

Justice Is Often Pale And Melancholy; But Gratitude, Her Daughter, Is Constantly In The Flow Of Spirits And The Bloom Of Loveliness.

Experience Is Our Only Teacher Both In War And Peace.

When We Play The Fool, How Widethe Theatre Expands! Beside,how Long The Audience Sits Before Us!how Many Prompters! What A Chorus!

You Should Indeed Have Longer Tarried By The Roadside Before You Married.

It Has Been My Fortune To Love In General Those Men Most Who Have Thought Most Differently From Me, On Subjects Wherein Others Pardon No Discordance. I Think I Have No More Right To Be Angry With A Man, Whose Reason Has Followed Up A Process Different From What Mine Has, And Is Satisfied With The Result, Than With One Who Has Gone To Venice While I Am At Siena, And Who Writes To Me That He Likes The Place.

O What A Thing Is Age! Death Without Death's Quiet.

I Would Recommend A Free Commerce Both Of Matter And Mind. I Would Let Men Enter Their Own Churches With The Same Freedom As Their Own Houses; And I Would Do It Without A Homily Or Graciousness Or Favor, For Tyranny Itself Is To Me A Word Less Odious Than Toleration.

Dignity, In Private Men And In Governments, Has Been Little Else Than A Stately And Stiff Perseverance In Oppression; And Spirit, As It Is Called, Little Else Than The Foam Of Hard-mouthed Insolence.

The Writing Of The Wise Are The Only Riches Our Posterity Cannot Squander.

It Is As Wise To Moderate Our Belief As Our Desires.

As We Sometimes Find One Thing While We Are Looking For Another, So, If Truth Escaped Me, Happiness And Contentment Fell In My Way.

Those Who In Living Fill The Smallest Space, In Death Have Often Left The Greatest Void.

This Is The Pleasantest Part Of Life. Oblivion Throws Her Light Coverlet Over Our Infancy; And, Soon After We Are Out Of The Cradle We Forget How Soundly We Had Been Slumbering, And How Delightful Were Our Dreams. Toil And Pleasure Contend For Us Almost The Instant We Rise From It: And Weariness Follows Whichever Has Carried Us Away. We Stop Awhile, Look Around Us, Wonder To Find We Have Completed The Circle Of Existence, Fold Our Arms, And Fall Asleep Again.

Great Men Lose Somewhat Of Their Greatness By Being Near Us; Ordinary Men Gain Much.

We Are Poor, Indeed, When We Have No Half-wishes Left Us. The Heart And The Imagination Close The Shutters The Instant They Are Gone.

An Ingenuous Mind Feels In Unmerited Praise The Bitterest Reproof. If You Reject It You Are Unhappy, If You Accept It You Are Undone.

Piety--warm, Soft, And Passive As The Ether Round The Throne Of Grace--is Made Callous And Inactive By Kneeling Too Much.

Truth Is A Point, The Subtlest And Finest; Harder Than Adamant; Never To Be Broken, Worn Away, Or Blunted. Its Only Bad Quality Is, That It Is Sure To Hurt Those Who Touch It; And Likely To Draw Blood, Perhaps The Life Blood, Of Those Who Press Earnestly Upon It.

I Have Suffered More From My Bad Dancing Than From All The Misfortunes And Miseries Of My Life Put Together.

Where Power Is Absent We May Find The Robe Of Genius, But We Miss The Throne.

Friendship Is A Vase, Which, When It Is Flawed By Heat, Or Violence, Or Accident, May As Well Be Broken At Once; It Can Never Be Trusted After.

Kings Play At War Unfairly With Republics; They Can Only Lose Some Earth, And Some Creatures They Value As Little, While Republics Lose In Every Soldier A Part Of Themselves.

Avoid, Which Many Grave Men Have Not Done, Words Taken From Sacred Subjects And From Elevated Poetry: These We Have Seen Vilely Prostituted. Avoid Too The Society Of The Barbarians Who Misemploy Them.

We Care Not How Many See Us In Choler, When We Rave And Bluster, And Make As Much Noise And Bustle As We Can; But If The Kindest And Most Generous Affection Comes Across Us, We Suppress Every Sign Of It, And Hide Ourselves In Nooks And Covert.

There Is A Desire Of Property In The Sanest And Best Men, Which Nature Seems To Have Implanted As Conservative Of Her Works, And Which Is Necessary To Encourage And Keep Alive The Arts.

Nations, Like Individuals, Interest Us In Their Growth.

What Is Reading But Silent Conversation?

If In Argument We Can Make A Man Angry With Us, We Have Drawn Him From His Vantage Ground And Overcome Him.

The Present, Like A Note In Music, Is Nothing But As It Appertains To What Is Past And What Is To Come.

The Very Beautiful Rarely Love At All; Those Precious Images Are Placed Above The Reach Of The Passions: Time Alone Is Permitted To Efface Them.

Let Me Take Up Your Metaphor. Friendship Is A Vase, Which, When It Is Flawed By Heat Or Violence Or Accident, May As Well Be Broken At Once; It Can Never Be Trusted After. The More Graceful And Ornamental It Was, The More Clearly Do We Discern The Hopelessness Of Restoring It To Its Former State. Coarse Stones, If They Are Fractured, May Be Cemented Again; Precious Stones, Never.

Precious Stones

Clear Writers, Like Fountains, Do Not Seem So Deep As They Are; The Turbid Look The Most Profound.

All Schools Of Philosophy, And Almost All Authors, Are Rather To Be Frequented For Exercise Than For Weight.

Cats Like Men Are Flatterers.

Of All Failures, To Fail In A Witticism Is The Worst, And The Mishap Is The More Calamitous In A Drawn-out And Detailed One

What Is Companionship Where Nothing That Improves The Intellect Is Communicated, And Where The Larger Heart Contracts Itself To The Model And Dimension Of The Smaller?

No Ashes Are Lighter Than Those Of Incense, And Few Things Burn Out Sooner.

Ambition Does Not See The Earth She Treads On: The Rock And The Herbage Are Of One Substance To Her.

A Mercantile Democracy May Govern Long And Widely; A Mercantile Aristocracy Cannot Stand.

True Wit, To Every Man, Is That Which Falls On Another.

There Is No Easy Path Leading Out Of Life, And Few Are The Easy Ones That Lie Within It.

Around The Child Bend All The Threesweet Graces: Faith, Hope, Charity.around The Man Bend Other Faces;pride, Envy, Malice, Are His Graces.

The Highest Price We Can Pay For Anything; Is To Ask It.

Not Dancing Well, I Never Danced At All--and How Grievously Has My Heart Ached When Others Where In The Full Enjoyment Of That Conversation Which I Had No Right Even To Partake.

Little Men Build Up Great Ones, But The Snow Colossus Soon Melts; The Good Stand Under The Eye Of God, And Therefore Stand.

We Oftener Say Things Because We Can Say Them Well, Than Because They Are Sound And Reasonable.

When A Cat Flatters ... He Is Not Insincere: You May Safely Take It For Real Kindness.

I Strove With None, For None Was Worth My Strife. Nature I Loved And, Next To Nature, Art: I Warm'd Both Hands Before The Fire Of Life; It Sinks, And I Am Ready To Depart.

Such Is Our Impatience, Such Our Hatred Of Procrastination, To Everything But The Amendment Of Our Practices And The Adornment Of Our Nature, One Would Imagine We Were Dragging Time Along By Force, And Not He Us.

Procrastination

No Good Writer Was Ever Long Neglected; No Great Man Overlooked By Men Equally Great. Impatience Is A Proof Of Inferior Strength, And A Destroyer Of What Little There May Be.

My Thoughts Are My Company; I Can Bring Them Together, Select Them, Detain Them, Dismiss Them.

When A Woman Hath Ceased To Be Quite The Same To Us, It Matters Little How Different She Becomes.

Despotism Sits Nowhere So Secure As Under The Effigy And Ensigns Of Freedom.

Solitude Is The Audience-chamber Of God.

Life And Death Appear More Certainly Ours Than Whatsoever Else; And Yet Hardly Can That Be Called Ours, Which Comes Without Our Knowledge, And Goes Without It.

Was Genius Ever Ungrateful? Mere Talents Are Dry Leaves, Tossed Up And Down By Gusts Of Passion, And Scattered And Swept Away; But, Genius Lies On The Bosom Of Memory, And Gratitude At Her Feet.

Nothing Is Pleasanter To Me Than Exploring In A Library.

There Is Only One Word Of Tenderness We Could Say, Which We Have Not Said Oftentimes Before ; And There Is No Consolation In It. The Happy Never Say, And Never Hear Said, Farewell.

Ridicule Has Followed The Vestiges Of Truth, But Never Usurped Her Place.

We Fancy We Suffer From Ingratitude, While In Reality We Suffer From Self-love.

Moroseness Is The Evening Of Turbulence.

Men Universally Are Ungrateful Towards Him Who Instructs Them, Unless, In The Hours Or In The Intervals Of Instruction, He Presents A Sweet-cake To Their Self-love.

He Who Brings Ridicule To Bear Against Truth Finds In His Hand A Blade Without A Hilt.

Truth, Like The Juice Of The Poppy, In Small Quantities, Calms Men; In Larger, Heats And Irritates Them, And Is Attended By Fatal Consequences In Excess.

Whatever Is Worthy To Be Loved For Anything Is Worthy Of Preservation. A Wise And Dispassionate Legislator, If Any Such Should Ever Arise Among Men, Will Not Condemn To Death Him Who Has Done Or Is Likely To Do More Service Than Injury To Society. Blocks And Gibbets Are The Nearest Objects With Legislators, And Their Business Is Never With Hopes Or With Virtues.

Virtue Is Presupposed In Friendship.

We Cannot Be Contented Because We Are Happy, And We Cannot Be Happy Because We Are Contented.

Happy And Contented

I Sometimes Think That The Most Plaintive Ditty Has Brought A Fuller Joy And Of Longer Duration To Its Composer That The Conquest Of Persia To The Macedonian.

How Delightful It Is To See A Friend After A Length Of Absence! How Delightful To Chide Him For That Length Of Absence To Which We Owe Such Delight.

He Who Brings Ridicule To Bear Against Truth Finds In His Hand A Blade Without A Hilt. The Most Sparkling And Pointed Flame Of Wit Flickers And Expires Against The Incombustible Walls Of Her Sanctuary.

The Siren Waits Thee, Singing Song For Song.

It Is Delightful To Kiss The Eyelashes Of The Beloved--is It Not? But Never So Delightful As When Fresh Tears Are On Them.

Belief In A Future Life Is The Appetite Of Reason.

The Spirit Of Greece, Passing Through And Ascending Above The World, Hath So Animated Universal Nature, That The Very Rocks And Woods, The Very Torrents And Wilds Burst Forth With It.

Politeness Is Not Always A Sign Of Wisdom; But The Want Of It Always Leaves Room For A Suspicion Of Folly, If Folly And Imprudence Are The Same.

Study Is The Bane Of Childhood, The Oil Of Youth, The Indulgence Of Adulthood, And A Restorative In Old Age.

Many Love Music But For Music's Sake, Many Because Her Touches Can Awake Thoughts That Repose Within The Breast Half-dead, And Rise To Follow Where She Loves To Lead. What Various Feelings Come From Days Gone By! What Tears From Far-off Sources Dim The Eye! Few, When Light Fingers With Sweet Voices Play, And Melodies Swell, Pause, And Melt Away, Mind How At Every Touch, At Every Tone, A Spark Of Life Hath Glistened And Hath Gone.

As The Pearl Ripens In The Obscurity Of Its Shell, So Ripens In The Tomb All The Fame That Is Truly Precious.

In Argument, Truth Always Prevails Finally; In Politics, Falsehood Always.

Merit Has Rarely Risen Of Itself, But A Pebble Or A Twig Is Often Quite Sufficient For It To Spring From To The Highest Ascent. There Is Usually Some Baseness Before There Is Any Elevation.

States, Like Men, Have Their Growth, Their Manhood, Their Decrepitude, Their Decay.

Falsehood Is For A Season.

There Is A Vast Deal Of Vital Air In Loving Words.

Vast Objects Of Remote Altitude Must Be Looked At A Long While Before They Are Ascertained. Ages Are The Telescope Tubes That Must Be Lengthened Out For Shakespeare; And Generations Of Men Serve But A Single Witness To His Claims.

Wisdom Consisteth Not In Knowing Many Things, Nor Even In Knowing Them Thoroughly; But In Choosing And In Following What Conduces The Most Certainly To Our Lasting Happiness And True Glory.

Lasting Happiness

We Talk On Principal, But Act On Motivation.

There Is No Eloquence Which Does Not Agitate The Soul.

He Who First Praises A Book Becomingly Is Next In Merit To The Author.

Happiness, Like Air And Water, The Other Two Great Requisites Of Life, Is Composite. One Kind Of It Suits One Man, Another Kind Another. The Elevated Mind Takes In And Breathes Out Again That Which Would Be Uncongenial To The Baser; And The Baser Draws Life And Enjoyment From That Which Would Be Putridity To The Loftier.

Every Sect Is A Moral Check On Its Neighbour. Competition Is As Wholesome In Religion As In Commerce.

Every Good Writer Has Much Idiom; It Is The Life And Spirit Of Language.

Wrong Is But Falsehood Put In Practice.

Many Laws As Certainly Make Men Bad, As Bad Men Make Many Laws.

Law And Justice

There Is Nothing On Earth Divine Except Humanity.

A True Philosopher Is Beyond The Reach Of Fortune.

There Are Proud Men Of So Much Delicacy That It Almost Conceals Their Pride, And Perfectly Excuses It.

Hope Is The Mother Of Faith.

Delay In Justice Is Injustice.

How Sweet And Sacred Idleness Is!

The Sublime Is Contained In A Grain Of Dust.

Prose On Certain Occasions Can Bear A Great Deal Of Poetry; On The Other Hand, Poetry Sinks And Swoons Under A Moderate Weight Of Prose.

To My Ninth Decade I Have Totter'd On, And No Soft Arm Bends Now My Steps To Steady; She, Who Once Led Me Where She Would, Is Gone, So When He Calls Me, Death Shall Find Me Ready.

The Habit Of Pleasing By Flattery Makes A Language Soft; The Fear Of Offending By Truth Makes It Circuitous And Conventional.

There Is Delight In Singing, Though None Hear Beside The Singer.

Every Great Writer Is A Writer Of History, Let Him Treat On Almost What Subject He May.

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