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Habitual Liars Invent Falsehoods Not To Gain Any End Or Even To Deceive Their Hearers, But To Amuse Themselves. It Is Partly Practice And Partly Habit. It Requires An Effort In Them To Speak Truth.

-William Hazlitt

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Habitual Liars Invent Falsehoods

William Hazlitt

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Habitual Liars Invent Falsehoods Not To Gain Any End Or Even To Deceive Their Hearers, But To Amuse Themselves. It Is Partly Practice And Partly Habit. It Requires An Effort In Them To Speak Truth.

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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.

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.

Those People Who Are Always Improving Never Become Great. Greatness Is An Eminence, The Ascent To Which Is Steep And Lofty, And Which A Man Must Seize On At Once By Natural Boldness And Vigor, And Not By Patient, Wary Steps.

Society Is A More Level Surface Than We Imagine. Wise Men Or Absolute Fools Are Hard To Be Met With, As There Are Few Giants Or Dwarfs. The Heaviest Charge We Can Bring Against The General Texture Of Society Is That It Is Commonplace. Our Fancied Superiority To Others Is In Some One Thing Which We Think Most Of Because We Excel In It, Or Have Paid Most Attention To It; Whilst We Overlook Their Superiority To Us In Something Else Which They Set Equal And Exclusive Store By.

To Give A Reason For Anything Is To Breed A Doubt Of It.

Books Are A World In Themselves, It Is True; But They Are Not The Only World. The World Itself Is A Volume Larger Than All The Libraries In It.

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.

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; And In Order That The Deception May Succeed It Must Be Habitual And Uninterrupted.

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

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.

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

Public Speaking

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.

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.

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.

The Most Learned Are Often The Most Narrow Minded.

Open Mindedness

Cunning Is The Art Of Concealing Our Own Defects, And Discovering Other People's Weaknesses.

Genius Only Leaves Behind It The Monuments Of Its Strength.

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

The Corpse Of Friendship Is Not Worth Embalming.

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.

In Exploring New And Doubtful Tracts Of Speculation, The Mind Strikes Out True And Original Views; As A Drop Of Water Hesitates At First What Direction It Will Take, But Afterwards Follows Its Own Course.

Those Only Deserve A Monument Who Do Not Need One; That Is, Who Have Raised Themselves A Monument In The Minds And Memories Of Men.

It Is Remarkable How Virtuous And Generously Disposed Every One Is At A Play.

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

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

No Really Great Man Ever Thought Himself So.

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

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

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.

When I Take Up A Book I Have Read Before, I Know What To Expect; The Satisfaction Is Not Lessened By Being Anticipated. I Shake Hands With, And Look Our Old Tried And Valued Friend In The Face,--compare Notes And Chat The Hour Away.

The Most Fluent Talkers Or Most Plausible Reasoners Are Not Always The Justest Thinkers.

Pride Is Founded Not On The Sense Of Happiness, But On The Sense Of Power.

Envy Is The Most Universal Passion. We Only Pride Ourselves On The Qualities We Possess, Or Think We Possess; But We Envy The Pretensions We Have, And Those Which We Have Not, And Do Not Even Wish For. We Envy The Greatest Qualities And Every Trifling Advantage. We Envy The Most Ridiculous Appearance Or Affectation Of Superiority. We Envy Folly And Conceit; Nay, We Go So Far As To Envy Whatever Confers Distinction Of Notoriety, Even Vice And Infamy.

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.

A King (as Such) Is Not A Great Man. He Has Great Power, But It Is Not His Own.

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

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

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

It Is Only Those Who Never Think At All, Or Else Who Have Accustomed Themselves To Blood Invariably On Abstract Ideas, That Ever Feel Ennui.

There Are Some Persons Who Never Succeed From Being Too Indolent To Undertake Anything; And Others Who Regularly Fail, Because The Instant They Find Success In Their Power, They Grow Indifferent, And Give Over The Attempt.

There Are Only Three Pleasures In Life Pure And Lasting, And All Derived From Inanimate Things-books, Pictures And The Face Of Nature.

No Truly Great Person Ever Thought Themselves So.

Humour Is The Describing The Ludicrous As It Is In Itself; Wit Is The Exposing It, By Comparing Or Contrasting It With Something Else. Humour Is, As It Were, The Growth Of Nature And Accident; Wit Is The Product Of Art And Fancy.

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

Keep Your Misfortunes To Yourself.

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

In What We Really Understand, We Reason But Little.

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

We Can Scarcely Hate Anyone That We Know.

To Be Forward To Praise Others Implies Either Great Eminence, That Can Afford To, Part With Applause; Or Great Quickness Of Discernment, With Confidence In Our Own Judgments; Or Great Sincerity And Love Of Truth, Getting The Better Of Our Self-love.

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

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.

Wherever The Government Does Not Emanate...from The People, The Principle Of The Government, The Esprit De Corps, The Point Of Honour, In All Those Connected With It, And Raised By It To Privileges Above The Law And Above Humanity, Will Be Hatred To The People.

Want Of Principle Is Power. Truth And Honesty Set A Limit To Our Efforts, Which Impudence And Hypocrisy Easily Overleap.

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.

A Wise Traveler Never Despises His Own Country.

We Imagine That The Admiration Of The Works Of Celebrated Men Has Become Common, Because The Admiration Of Their Names Has Become So.

The Most Insignificant People Are The Most Apt To Sneer At Others. They Are Safe From Reprisals. And Have No Hope Of Rising In Their Own Self Esteem But By Lowering Their Neighbors.

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.

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

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.

Let A Man's Talents Or Virtues Be What They May, He Will Only Feel Satisfaction In His Society As He Is Satisfied In Himself.

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 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.

[science Is] The Desire To Know Causes.

The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's Sister, Who Was No Saint, Sat To Canova As A Reclining Venus, And Being Asked If She Did Not Feel A Little Uncomfortable, Replied, "no. There Was A Fire In The Room."

If We Use No Ceremony Towards Others, We Shall Be Treated Without Any. People Are Soon Tired Of Paying Trifling Attentions To Those Who Receive Them With Coldness, And Return Them With Neglect.

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

Liberty Is The Only True Riches: Of All The Rest We Are At Once The Masters And The Slaves.

The Humblest Painter Is A True Scholar; And The Best Of Scholars The Scholar Of Nature.

Walk Groundly, Talk Profoundly, Drink Roundly, Sleep Soundly.

Poverty, Labor, And Calamity Are Not Without Their Luxuries, Which The Rich, The Indolent, And The Fortunate In Vain Seek For.

That Which Anyone Has Been Long Learning Unwillingly, He Unlearns With Proportional Eagerness And Haste.

Wit Is The Salt Of Conversation, Not The Food.

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.

A Man Who Does Not Endeavour To Seem More Than He Is Will Generally Be Thought Nothing Of. We Habitually Make Such Large Deductions For Pretence And Imposture That No Real Merit Will Stand Against Them. It Is Necessary To Set Off Our Good Qualities With A Certain Air Of Plausibility And Self-importance, As Some Attention To Fashion Is Necessary.

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

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.

Perhaps The Best Cure For The Fear Of Death Is To Reflect That Life Has A Beginning As Well As An End.

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.

Confidence Gives A Fool The Advantage Over A Wise Man.

The Great Requisite For The Prosperous Management Of Ordinary Business Is The Want Of Imagination.

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.

Hope Is The Best Possession. None Are Completely Wretched But Those Who Are Without Hope. Few Are Reduced So Low As That.

Hoping For The Best

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.

Dr. Johnson Was A Lazy Learned Man Who Liked To Think And Talk Better Than To Read Or Write; Who, However, Wrote Much And Well, But Too Often By Rote.

Asleep, Nobody Is A Hypocrite

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.

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

A Great Chessplayer Is Not A Great Man, For He Leaves The World As He Found It.

Look Up, Laugh Loud, Talk Big, Keep The Color In Your Cheek And The Fire In Your Eye, Adorn Your Person, Maintain Your Health, Your Beauty And Your Animal Spirits.

Books Wind Into The Heart.

I Do Not Think There Is Anything Deserving The Name Of Society To Be Found Out Of London.

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

Lying Is The Strongest Acknowledgement Of The Force Of Truth.

Acknowledgement

Happy Are They Who Live In The Dream Of Their Own Existence, And See All Things In The Light Of Their Own Minds; Who Walk By Faith And Hope; To Whom The Guiding Star Of Their Youth Still Shines From Afar, And Into Whom The Spirit Of The World Has Not Entered! They Have Not Been "hurt By The Archers", Nor Has The Iron Entered Their Souls. The World Has No Hand On Them.

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

...greatness Sympathises With Greatness, And Littleness Shrinks Into Itself.

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.

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

I Can Enjoy Society In A Room; But Out Of Doors, Nature Is Company Enough For Me

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

Words Are The Only Things That Last For Ever.

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

Silence Is One Great Art Of Conversation.

Those Are Ever The Most Ready To Do Justice To Others, Who Feel That The World Has Done Them Justice.

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 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.

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.

Nothing Precludes Sympathy So Much As A Perfect Indifference To It

Believe All The Good You Can Of Everyone. Do Not Measure Others By Yourself. If They Have Advantages Which You Have Not, Let Your Liberality Keep Pace With Their Good Fortune. Envy No One, And You Need Envy No One.

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

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

Mankind Are So Ready To Bestow Their Admiration On The Dead, Because The Latter Do Not Hear It, Or Because It Gives No Pleasure To The Objects Of It. Even Fame Is The Offspring Of Envy.

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

The Soul Of Dispatch Is Decision.

There Is A Heroism In Crime As Well As In Virtue. Vice And Infamy Have Their Altars And Their Religion.

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

The True Barbarian Is He Who Thinks Everything Barbarous But His Own Tastes And Prejudices.

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

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.

Religion Either Makes Men Wise And Virtuous, Or It Makes Them Set Up False Pretenses To Both.

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

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.

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.

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

Knowledge Is Pleasure As Well As Power.

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

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

What I Mean By Living To One's Self Is Living In The World, As In It, Not Of It.

True Friendship Is Self-love At Second-hand.

You Know More Of A Road By Having Traveled It Than By All The Conjectures And Descriptions In The World.

Those Who Object To Wit Are Envious Of It.

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.

A Life Of Action And Danger Moderates The Dread Of Death. It Not Only Gives Us Fortitude To Bear Pain, But Teaches Us At Every Step The Precarious Tenure On Which We Hold Our Present Being.

If Mankind Had Wished For What Is Right, They Might Have Had It Long Ago.

An Honest Man Speaks The Truth, Though It May Give Offence; A Vain Man, In Order That It May.

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

The Worst Old Age Is That Of The Mind.

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

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.

The Devil Was A Great Loss In The Preternatural World. He Was Always Something To Fear And To Hate; He Supplied The Antagonist Powers Of The Imagination, And The Arch Of True Religion Hardly Stands Firm Without Him.

Corporate Bodies Are More Corrupt And Profligate Than Individuals, Because They Have More Power To Do Mischief, And Are Less Amenable To Disgrace Or Punishment. They Feel Neither Shame, Remorse, Gratitude, Nor Goodwill.

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

Popularity Is Neither Fame Nor Greatness.

The Measure Of Any Man's Virtue Is What He Would Do, If He Had Neither The Laws Nor Public Opinion, Nor Even His Own Prejudices, To Control Him.

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 Way To Secure Success Is To Be More Anxious About Obtaining Than About Deserving It.

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

Just As Much As We See In Others We Have In Ourselves.

Self Confidence

We Would Willingly, And Without Remorse, Sacrifice Not Only The Present Moment, But All The Interval (no Matter How Long) That Separates Us From Any Favorite Object.

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

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

One Of The Pleasantest Things In The World Is Going On A Journey; But I Like To Go By Myself.

A Man Knows His Companion In A Long Journey And A Little Inn.

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

Experience Makes Us Wise.

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.

There Is No Flattery So Adroit Or Effectual As That Of Implicit Assent.

One Truth Discovered Is Immortal, And Entitles Its Author To Be So; For, Like A New Substance In Nature, It Cannot Be Destroyed.

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.

Rules And Models Destroy Genius And Art.

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.

Those Who Have Had None Of The Cares Of This Life To Harass And Disturb Them, Have Been Obliged To Have Recourse To The Hopes And Fears Of The Next To Vary The Prospect Before Them.

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

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.

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

Nothing Is More Unjust Or Capricious Than Public Opinion.

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

Pure Good Soon Grows Insipid, Wants Variety And Spirit. Pain Is A Bittersweet, Which Never Surfeits. Love Turns, With A Little Indulgence, To Indifference Or Disgust. Hatred Alone Is Immortal.

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

Political Truth Is Libel; Religious Truth, Blasphemy.

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

A Thing Is Not Vulgar Merely Because It Is Common.

He Who Undervalues Himself Is Justly Undervalued By Others.

Our Energy Is In Proportion To The Resistance It Meets.

Life Is A Continued Struggle To Be What We Are Not, And To Do What We Cannot.

We Are All Of Us, More Or Less, The Slaves Of Opinion.

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

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

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 Most Rational Cure After All For The Inordinate Fear Of Death Is To Set A Just Value On Life.

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

A Mighty Stream Of Tendency.

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

Leisure Activities

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

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

Our Notions With Respect To The Importance Of Life, And Our Attachment To It, Depend On A Principle Which Has Very Little To Do With Its Happiness Or Its Misery. The Love Of Life Is, In General, The Effect Not Of Our Enjoyments, But Of Our Passions.

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.

It Is The Vice Of Scholars To Suppose That There Is No Knowledge In The World But That Of Books.

Literature, Like Nobility, Runs In The Blood.

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.

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

Time,--the Most Independent Of All Things.

There Is Nothing More To Be Esteemed Than A Manly Firmness And Decision Of Character.

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

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.

He Who Does Nothing Renders Himself Incapable Of Doing Any Thing; But While We Are Executing Any Work, We Are Preparing And Qualifying Ourselves To Undertake Another.

The Player Envies Only The Player, The Poet Envies Only The Poet.

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