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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.

-William Hazlitt

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Give Me The Clear

William Hazlitt

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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.

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There Is Nothing More Likely To Drive A Man Mad, Than The Being Unable To Get Rid Of The Idea Of The Distinction Between Right And Wrong, And An Obstinate, Constitutional Preference Of The True To The Agreeable.

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?

There Are Names Written In Her Immortal Scroll At Which Fame Blushes!

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

There Is A Quiet Repose And Steadiness About The Happiness Of Age, If The Life Has Been Well Spent. Its Feebleness Is Not Painful. The Nervous System Has Lost Its Acuteness. But, In Mature Years We Feel That A Burn, A Scald, A Cut, Is More Tolerable Than It Was In The Sensitive Period Of Youth.

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.

No Man Would, I Think, Exchange His Existence With Any Other Man, However Fortunate. We Had As Lief Not Be, As Not Be Ourselves.

A Person Who Talks With Equal Vivacity On Every Subject, Excites No Interest In Any. Repose Is As Necessary In Conversation As In A Picture.

He Will Never Have True Friends Who Is Afraid Of Making Enemies.

Landscape Painting Is The Obvious Resource Of Misanthropy.

Landscape Painting

Men Of Gravity Are Intellectual Stammerers, Whose Thoughts Move Slowly.

The Look Of A Gentleman Is Little Else Than The Reflection Of The Looks Of The World.

A Full-dressed Ecclesiastic Is A Sort Of Go-cart Of Divinity; An Ethical Automaton. A Clerical Prig Is, In General, A Very Dangerous As Well As Contemptible Character. The Utmost That Those Who Thus Habitually Confound Their Opinions And Sentiments With The Outside Coverings Of Their Bodies Can Aspire To, Is A Negative And Neutral Character, Like Wax-work Figures, Where The Dress Is Done As Much To The Life As The Man, And Where Both Are Respectable Pieces Of Pasteboard, Or Harmless Compositions Of Fleecy Hosiery.

There Is An Unseemly Exposure Of The Mind, As Well As Of The Body.

No Act Terminating In Itself Constitutes Greatness.

I Hate Anything That Occupies More Space Than It Is Worth... I Hate To See A Parcel Of Big Words Without Anything In Them.

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

A Man In Love Prefers His Passion To Every Other Consideration, And Is Fonder Of His Mistress Than He Is Of Virtue. Should She Prove Vicious, She Makes Vice Lovely In His Eyes.

We Are Not Satisfied To Be Right, Unless We Can Prove Others To Be Quite Wrong.

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.

We Grow Tired Of Ourselves, Much More Of Other People.

We Are Never So Much Disposed To Quarrel With Others As When We Are Dissatisfied With Ourselves.

Positive Thinking

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.

Old Friendships Are Like Meats Served Up Repeatedly, Cold, Comfortless, And Distasteful. The Stomach Turns Against Them.

He Who Undervalues Himself Is Justly Undervalued By Others.

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!

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.

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.

He Who Expects From A Great Name In Politics, In Philosophy, In Art, Equal Greatness In Other Things, Is Little Versed In Human Nature. Our Strength Lies In Our Weakness. The Learned In Books Are Ignorant Of The World. He Who Is Ignorant Of Books Is Often Well Acquainted With Other Things; For Life Is Of The Same Length In The Learned And Unlearned; The Mind Cannot Be Idle; If It Is Not Taken Up With One Thing, It Attends To Another Through Choice Or Necessity; And The Degree Of Previous Capacity In One Class Or Another Is A Mere Lottery.

Language, If It Throws A Veil Over Our Ideas, Adds A Softness And Refinement To Them, Like That Which The Atmosphere Gives To Naked Objects.

Love And Joy Are Twins Or Born Of Each Other.

Prejudice Is Never Easy Unless It Can Pass Itself Off For Reason.

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.

A Certain Excess Of Animal Spirits With Thoughtless Good-humor Will Often Make More Enemies Than The Most Deliberate Spite And Ill-nature, Which Is On Its Guard, And Strikes With Caution And Safety.

The Only Impeccable Writers Are Those Who Never Wrote.

The Imagination Is Of So Delicate A Texture That Even Words Wound It.

A Situation In A Public Office Is Secure, But Laborious And Mechanical, And Without The Great Springs Of Life, Hope And Fear.

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

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.

There Is Not A More Mean, Stupid, Dastardly, Pitiful, Selfish, Spiteful, Envious, Ungrateful Animal Than The Public. It Is The Greatest Of Cowards, For It Is Afraid Of Itself.

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

We Do Not Like Our Friends The Worse Because They Sometimes Give Us An Opportunity To Rail At Them Heartily. Their Faults Reconcile Us To Their Virtues.

Whatever Is Placed Beyond The Reach Of Sense And Knowledge, Whatever Is Imperfectly Discerned, The Fancy Pieces Out At Its Leisure; And All But The Present Moment, But The Present Spot, Passion Claims For Its Own, And Brooding Over It With Wings Outspread, Stamps It With An Image Of Itself. Passion Is Lord Of Infinite Space, And Distant Objects Please Because They Border On Its Confines And Are Moulded By Its Touch.

Languages Happily Restrict The Mind To What Is Of Its Own Native Growth And Fitted For It, As Rivers And Mountains Bond Countries; Or The Empire Of Learning, As Well As States, Would Become Unwieldy And Overgrown.

Prosperity Is A Great Teacher; Adversity Is A Greater. Possession Pampers The Mind; Privation Trains And Strengthens It.

The Multitude Who Require To Be Led, Still Hate Their Leaders.

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.

I'm Not Smart, But I Like To Observe. Millions Saw The Apple Fall, But Newton Was The One Who Asked Why.

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

Indolence Is A Delightful But Distressing State; We Must Be Doing Something To Be Happy. Action Is No Less Necessary Than Thought To The Instinctive Tendencies Of The Human Frame.

The Seat Of Knowledge Is In The Head; Of Wisdom, In The Heart. We Are Sure To Judge Wrong, If We Do Not Feel Right.

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.

You Will Hear More Good Things On The Outside Of A Stagecoach From London To Oxford Than If You Were To Pass A Twelvemonth With The Undergraduates, Or Heads Of Colleges, Of That Famous University.

There Is A Softness And A Harmony In The Words And In The Thought Unparalleled. Of All Conceits It Is Surely The Most Classical. "i Count Only The Hours That Are Serene.".

Some One Is Generally Sure To Be The Sufferer By A Joke.

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.

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

Grace Has Been Defined As The Outward Expression Of The Inward Harmony Of The Soul.

But Of All Footmen The Lowest Class Is Literary Footmen.

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

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.

Nothing Gives Such A Blow To Friendship As The Detecting Another In An Untruth. It Strikes At The Root Of Our Confidence Ever After.

The Best Kind Of Conversation Is That Which May Be Called Thinking Aloud.

The Discussing The Characters And Foibles Of Common Friends Is A Great Sweetness And Cement Of Friendship.

It Might Be Argued, That To Be A Knave Is The Gift Of Fortune, But To Play The Fool To Advantage It Is Necessary To Be A Learned Man.

Almost Every Sect Of Christianity Is A Perversion Of Its Essence, To Accommodate It To The Prejudices Of The World.

The Expression Of A Gentleman's Face Is Not So Much That Of Refinement, As Of Flexibility, Not Of Sensibility And Enthusiasm As Of Indifference; It Argues Presence Of Mind Rather Than Enlargement Of Ideas.

Presence Of Mind

We Are Governed By Sympathy; And The Extent Of Our Sympathy Is Determined By That Of Our Sensibility

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

Asleep, Nobody Is A Hypocrite

Whatever Interests Is Interesting.

To The Proud The Slightest Repulse Or Disappointment Is The Last Indignity.

A Nickname Is The Heaviest Stone That The Devil Can Throw At A Man. It Is A Bugbear To The Imagination, And, Though We Do Not Believe In It, It Still Haunts Our Apprehensions.

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

No Man Is Truly Great Who Is Great Only In His Lifetime. The Test Of Greatness Is The Page Of History.

Malice Often Takes The Garb Of Truth.

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.

Life Is The Art Of Being Well Deceived.

Most Of The Methods For Measuring The Lapse Of Time Have, I Believe, Been The Contrivance Of Monks And Religious Recluses, Who, Finding Time Hang Heavy On Their Hands, Were At Some Pains To See How They Got Rid Of It.

The Love Of Letters Is The Forlorn Hope Of The Man Of Letters. His Ruling Passion Is The Love Of Fame.

Rules And Models Destroy Genius And Art.

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.

Vice Is Man's Nature: Virtue Is A Habit -- Or A Mask. . . . The Foregoing Maxim Shows The Difference Between Truth And Sarcasm.

The Thing Is Plain. All That Men Really Understand, Is Confined To A Very Small Compass; To Their Daily Affairs And Experience; To What They Have An Opportunity To Know, And Motives To Study Or Practice. The Rest Is Affectation And Imposture.

We Are Thankful For Good-will Rather Than For Services, For The Motive Than The Quantum Of Favor Received.

Books Wind Into The Heart.

Tyrants Forego All Respect For Humanity In Proportion As They Are Sunk Beneath It. Taught To Believe Themselves Of A Different Species, They Really Become So, Lose Their Participation With Their Kind, And In Mimicking The God Dwindle Into The Brute.

This Is The Test And Triumph Of Originality, Not To Show Us What Has Never Been, And What We May Therefore Very Easily Never Have Dreamt Of, But To Point Out To Us What Is Before Our Eyes And Under Our Feet, Though We Have Had No Suspicion Of Its Existence, For Want Of Sufficient Strength Of Intuition, Of Determined Grasp Of Mind To Seize And Retain It.

With Women, The Great Business Of Life Is Love; And They Generally Make A Mistake In It. They Consult Neither The Heart Nor The Head, But Are Led Away By Mere Humour And Fancy. If Instead Of A Companion For Life, They Had To Choose A Partner In A Country-dance Or To Trifle Away An Hour With, Their Mode Of Calculation Would Be Right. They Tie Their True-lover's Knot With Idle, Thoughtless Haste, While The Institutions Of Society Render It Indissoluble.

The Incentive To Ambition Is The Love Of Power.

Gallantry To Women - The Sure Road To Their Favor - Is Nothing But The Appearance Of Extreme Devotion To All Their Wants And Wishes, A Delight In Their Satisfaction, And A Confidence In Yourself As Being Able To Contribute Toward It

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

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

The Art Of Conversation Is The Art Of Hearing As Well As Of Being Heard.

An Accomplished Coquette Excites The Passions Of Others, In Proportion As She Feels None Herself.

The Great Have Private Feelings Of Their Own, To Which The Interests Of Humanity And Justice Must Curtsy. Their Interests Are So Far From Being The Same As Those Of The Community, That They Are In Direct And Necessary Opposition To Them; Their Power Is At The Expense Of Our Weakness; Their Riches Of Our Poverty; Their Pride Of Our Degradation; Their Splendour Of Our Wretchedness; Their Tyranny Of Our Servitude.

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.

A Gentle Word, A Kind Look, A Good-natured Smile Can Work Wonders And Accomplish Miracles.

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

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

A Great Chess-player Is Not A Great Man, For He Leaves The World As He Found It. No Act Terminating In Itself Constitutes Greatness. This Will Apply To All Displays Of Power Or Trials Of Skill, Which Are Confined To The Momentary, Individual Effort, And Construct No Permanent Image Or Trophy Of Themselves Without Them

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

Avarice Is The Miser's Dream, As Fame Is The Poet's.

To Great Evils We Submit, We Resent Little Provocations.

I Like A Person Who Knows His Own Mind And Sticks To It; Who Sees At Once What Is To Be Done In Given Circumstances And Does It. He Does Not Beat About The Bush For Difficulties Or Excuses, But Goes The Shortest And Most Effectual Way To Work To Attain His Own Ends, Or To Accomplish A Useful Object.

The Love Of Fame Is Too High And Delicate A Feeling In The Mind To Be Mixed Up With Realities, It Is A Solitary Abstraction. * * * A Name "fast Anchored In The Deep Abyss Of Time" Is Like A Star Twinkling In The Firmament, Cold, Silent, Distant, But Eternal And Sublime; And Our Transmitting One To Posterity Is As If We Should Contemplate Our Translation To The Skies.

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.

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

The Best Way To Make Ourselves Agreeable To Others Is By Seeming To Think Them So. If We Appear Fully Sensible Of Their Good Qualities They Will Not Complain Of The Want Of Them In Us.

I Have Known Persons Without A Friend--never Any One Without Some Virtue. The Virtues Of The Former Conspired With Their Vices To Make The Whole World Their Enemies.

The Temple Of Fame Stands Upon The Grave: The Flame That Burns Upon Its Altars Is Kindled From The Ashes Of Great Men.

Greatness Is Great Power, Producing Great Effects. It Is Not Enough That A Man Has Great Power In Himself, He Must Shew It To All The World In A Way That Cannot Be Hid Or Gainsaid.

The Public Have Neither Shame Or Gratitude.

Genius Only Leaves Behind It The Monuments Of Its Strength.

In Love We Do Not Think Of Moral Qualities, And Scarcely Of Intellectual Ones. Temperament And Manner Alone, With Beauty, Excite Love.

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.

The Youth Is Better Than The Old Age Of Friendship.

True Friendship Is Self-love At Second-hand.

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.

A Woman's Vanity Is Interested In Making The Object Of Her Choice The God Of Her Idolatry.

Dandyism Is A Species Of Genius.

We Are The Creatures Of Imagination, Passion, And Self-will, More Than Of Reason Or Even Of Self-interest. Even In The Common Transactions And Daily Intercourse Of Life, We Are Governed By Whim, Caprice, Prejudice, Or Accident. The Falling Of A Teacup Puts Us Out Of Temper For The Day; And A Quarrel That Commenced About The Pattern Of A Gown May End Only With Our Lives.

The Diffusion Of Taste Is Not The Same Thing As The Improvement Of Taste.

One Shining Quality Lends A Lustre To Another, Or Hides Some Glaring Defect.

Those Who Wish To Forget Painful Thoughts Do Well To Absent Themselves For A While From, The Ties And Objects That Recall Them; But We Can Be Said Only To Fulfill Our Destiny In The Place That Gave Us Birth.

The Garb Of Religion Is The Best Cloak For Power.

There Are Few Things In Which We Deceive Ourselves More Than In The Esteem We Profess To Entertain For Our Firends. It Is Little Better Than A Piece Of Quackery. The Truth Is, We Think Of Them As We Please, That Is, As They Please Or Displease Us.

People Do Not Persist In Their Vices Because They Are Not Weary Of Them, But Because They Cannot Leave Them Off. It Is The Nature Of Vice To Leave Us No Resource But In Itself.

The Pleasure Of Hating, Like A Poisonous Mineral, Eats Into The Heart Of Religion, And Turns It To Ranking Spleen And Bigotry; It Makes Patriotism An Excuse For Carrying Fire, Pestilence, And Famine Into Other Lands: It Leaves To Virtue Nothing But The Spirit Of Censoriousness.

Cant Is The Voluntary Overcharging Or Prolongation Of A Real Sentiment; Hypocrisy Is The Setting Up A Pretension To A Feeling You Never Had And Have No Wish For.

Despair Swallows Up Cowardice.

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

Lying Is The Strongest Acknowledgement Of The Force Of Truth.

Acknowledgement

True Modesty And True Pride Are Much The Same Thing: Both Consist In Setting A Just Value On Ourselves - Neither More Nor Less.

Death Cancels Everything But Truth; And Strips A Man Of Everything But Genius And Virtue. It Is A Sort Of Natural Canonization.

Well I've Had A Happy Life.

Truth From The Mouth Of An Honest Man And Severity From A Good-natured Man Have A Double Effect.

Good Temper Is One Of The Great Preservers Of The Features.

A Scholar Is Like A Book Written In A Dead Language. It Is Not Every One That Can Read In It.

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

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

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.

I Hate To Be Near The Sea, And To Hear It Roaring And Raging Like A Wild Beast In Its Den. It Puts Me In Mind Of The Everlasting Efforts Of The Human Mind, Struggling To Be Free, And Ending Just Where It Began.

The Definition Of Genius Is That It Acts Unconsciously, And Those Who Have Produced Immortal Works Have Done So Without Knowing How Or Why.

I Am Then Never Less Alone Than When Alone

Affectation Is As Necessary To The Mind As Dress Is To The Body.

The Greatest Pleasure In Life Is That Of Reading While We Are Young. I Have Had As Much Of This Pleasure Perhaps As Any One.

The More We Do, The More We Can Do.

Leisure Activities

Famous Motivational

Repose Is As Necessary In Conversation As In A Picture.

Any Woman May Act The Part Of A Coquette Successfully Who Has The Reputation Without The Scruples Of Modesty. If A Woman Passes The Bounds Of Propriety For Our Sakes, And Throws Herself Unblushingly At Our Heads, We Conclude It Is Either From A Sudden And Violent Liking, Or From Extraordinary Merit On Our Parts, Either Of Which Is Enough To Turn Any Man's Head Who Has A Single Spark Of Gallantry Or Vanity In His Composition.

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

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.

Envy Is The Deformed And Distorted Offspring Of Egotism; And When We Reflect On The Strange And Disproportioned Character Of The Parent, We Cannot Wonder At The Perversity And Waywardness Of The Child.

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.

The Most Phlegmatic Dispositions Often Contain The Most Inflammable Spirits, As Fire Is Struck From The Hardest Flints.

Genius, Like Humanity, Rusts For Want Of Use.

We Often Forget Our Dreams So Speedily: If We Cannot Catch Them As They Are Passing Out At The Door, We Never Set Eyes On Them Again.

I Am Always Afraid Of A Fool. One Cannot Be Sure That He Is Not A Knave As Well.

Mankind Are An Incorrigible Race. Give Them But Bugbears And Idols -- It Is All That They Ask; The Distinctions Of Right And Wrong, Of Truth And Falsehood, Of Good And Evil, Are Worse Than Indifferent To Them.

We Find Many Things To Which The Prohibition Of Them Constitutes The Only Temptation.

To Be Happy, We Must Be True To Nature And Carry Our Age Along With Us.

A Proud Man Is Satisfied With His Own Good Opinion, And Does Not Seek To Make Converts To It.

It Is A False Principle That Because We Are Entirely Occupied With Ourselves, We Must Equally Occupy The Thoughts Of Others. The Contrary Inference Is The Fair One.

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.

Persons Without Education Certainly Do Not Want Either Acuteness Or Strength Of Mind In What Concerns Themselves, Or In Things Immediately Within Their Observation; But They Have No Power Of Abstraction, No General Standard Of Taste, Or Scale Of Opinion. They See Their Objects Always Near, And Never In The Horizon. Hence Arises That Egotism Which Has Been Remarked As The Characteristic Of Self-taught Men.

Humour Is The Making Others Act Or Talk Absurdly And Unconsciously; Wit Is The Pointing Out And Ridiculing That Absurdity Consciously, And With More Or Less Ill-nature.

Those Who Speak Ill Of The Spiritual Life, Although They Come And Go By Day, Are Like The Smith's Bellows: They Take Breath But Are Not Alive.

Human Life May Be Regarded As A Succession Of Frontispieces. The Way To Be Satisfied Is Never To Look Back.

When You Find Out A Man's Ruling Passion, Beware Of Crossing Him In It.

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.

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

The Amiable Is The Voluptuous In Expression Or Manner. The Sense Of Pleasure In Ourselves Is That Which Excites It In Others; Or, The Art Of Pleasing Is To Seem Pleased.

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.

Every Man, In His Own Opinion, Forms An Exception To The Ordinary Rules Of Morality.

A Life Of Action And Danger Moderates The Dread Of Death.

Comedy Naturally Wears Itself Out - Destroys The Very Food On Which It Lives; And By Constantly And Successfully Exposing The Follies And Weaknesses Of Mankind To Ridicule, In The End Leaves Itself Nothing Worth Laughing At.

One Is Always More Vexed At Losing A Game Of Any Sort By A Single Hole Or Ace, Than If One Has Never Had A Chance Of Winning It.

Anyone Is To Be Pitied Who Has Just Sense Enough To Perceive His Deficiencies.

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.

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.

Art Must Anchor In Nature, Or It Is The Sport Of Every Breath Of Folly.

From The Height From Which The Great Look Down On The World All The Rest Of Mankind Seem Equal.

Features Alone Do Not Run In The Blood; Vices And Virtues, Genius And Folly, Are Transmitted Through The Same Sure But Unseen Channel.

Though Familiarity May Not Breed Contempt, It Takes Off The Edge Of Admiration.

To Create An Unfavorable Impression, It Is Not Necessary That Certain Things Should Be True, But That They Have Been Said.

Of All Eloquence A Nickname Is The Most Concise; Of All Arguments The Most Unanswerable.

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

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.

The Admiration Of Power In Others Is As Common To Man As The Love Of It In Himself; The One Makes Him A Tyrant, The Other A Slave.

First Impressions Are Often The Truest, As We Find (not Unfrequently) To Our Cost When We Have Been Wheedled Out Of Them By Plausible Professions Or Actions. A Man's Look Is The Work Of Years, It Is Stamped On His Countenance By The Events Of His Whole Life, Nay, More, By The Hand Of Nature, And It Is Not To Be Got Rid Of Easily.

The Last Pleasure In Life Is The Sense Of Discharging Our Duty.

Painting Gives The Object Itself; Poetry What It Implies. Painting Embodies What A Thing Contains In Itself; Poetry Suggests What Exists Out Of It, In Any Manner Connected With It.

Those Who Are Pleased With The Fewest Things Know The Least, As Those Who Are Pleased With Everything Know Nothing.

If We Wish To Know The Force Of Human Genius, We Should Read Shakespeare. If We Wish To See The Insignificance Of Human Learning, We May Study His Commentators.

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

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?

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.

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

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James Whitcomb Riley

Paula Poundstone

Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

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