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I Am Not, In The Ordinary Acceptation Of The Term, A Good-natured Man; That Is, Many Things Annoy Me Besides What Interferes With My Own Ease And Interest. I Hate A Lie; A Piece Of Injustice Wounds Me To The Quick, Though Nothing But The Report Of It Reach Me. Therefore I Have Made Many Enemies And Few Friends; For The Public Know Nothing Of Well-wishers, And Keep A Wary Eye On Those Who Would Reform Them.

-William Hazlitt

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I Am Not, In

William Hazlitt

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I Am Not, In The Ordinary Acceptation Of The Term, A Good-natured Man; That Is, Many Things Annoy Me Besides What Interferes With My Own Ease And Interest. I Hate A Lie; A Piece Of Injustice Wounds Me To The Quick, Though Nothing But The Report Of It Reach Me. Therefore I Have Made Many Enemies And Few Friends; For The Public Know Nothing Of Well-wishers, And Keep A Wary Eye On Those Who Would Reform Them.

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There Is Nothing Good To Be Had In The Country, Or If There Is, They Will Not Let You Have It.

A Wise Traveler Never Despises His Own Country.

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

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.

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

Even In The Common Affairs Of Life, In Love, Friendship, And Marriage, How Little Security Have We When We Trust Our Happiness In The Hands Of Others!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Whatever Interests Is Interesting.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Every One In A Crowd Has The Power To Throw Dirt; None Out Of Ten Have The Inclination.

The Fear Of Approaching Death, Which In Youth We Imagine Must Cause Inquietude To The Aged, Is Very Seldom The Source Of Much Uneasiness.

To Die Is Only To Be As We Were Before We Were Born; Yet No One Feels Any Remorse, Or Regret, Or Repugnance, In Contemplating This Last Idea.

The Number Of Objects We See From Living In A Large City Amuses The Mind Like A Perpetual Raree-show, Without Supplying It With Any Ideas.

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.

The Chain Of Habit Coils Itself Around The Heart Like A Serpent, To Gnaw And Stifle It.

There Is Nothing So Remote From Vanity As True Genius. It Is Almost As Natural For Those Who Are Endowed With The Highest Powers Of The Human Mind To Produce The Miracles Of Art, As For Other Men To Breathe Or Move. Correggio, Who Is Said To Have Produced Some Of His Divinest Works Almost Without Having Seen A Picture, Probably Did Not Know That He Had Done Anything Extraordinary.

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

The Dupe Of Friendship, And The Fool Of Love; Have I Not Reason To Hate And To Despise Myself? Indeed I Do; And Chiefly For Not Having Hated And Despised The World Enough.

Lost Friendship

A Thing Is Not Vulgar Merely Because It Is Common.

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

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

To Be Wiser Than Other Men Is To Be Honester Than They; And Strength Of Mind Is Only Courage To See And Speak The Truth.

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.

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.

Common Sense, To Most People, Is Nothing More Than Their Own Opinions.

A Nickname Is The Hardest Stone That The Devil Can Throw At A Man.

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

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

Fashion Constantly Begins And Ends In The Two Things It Abhors Most, Singularity And Vulgarity.

If Goodness Were Only A Theory, It Were A Pity It Should Be Lost To The World. There Are A Number Of Things, The Idea Of Which Is A Clear Gain To The Mind. Let People, For Instance, Rail At Friendship, Genius, Freedom, As Long As They Will -the Very Names Of These Despised Qualities Are Better Than Anything Else That Could Be Substituted For Them, And Embalm Even The Most Envenomed Satire Against Them.

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.

Popularity Disarms Envy In Well-disposed Minds. Those Are Ever The Most Ready To Do Justice To Others Who Feel That The World Has Done Them Justice. When Success Has Not This Effect In Opening The Mind, It Is A Sign That It Has Been Ill Deserved.

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.

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

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.

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.

Those Who Make Their Dress A Principal Part Of Themselves, Will, In General, Become Of No More Value Than Their Dress.

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

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.

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.

The Love Of Liberty Is The Love Of Others; The Love Of Power Is The Love Of Ourselves.

The Best Part Of Our Lives We Pass In Counting On What Is To Come.

A Grave Blockhead Should Always Go About With A Lively One - They Show One Another Off To The Best Advantage.

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.

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

Painters... Are The Most Lively Observers Of What Passes In The World About Them, And The Closest Observers Of What Passes In Their Own Minds.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Smallest Pain In Our Little Finger Gives Us More Concern Than The Destruction Of Millions Of Our Fellow Beings.

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.

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

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

The Garb Of Religion Is The Best Cloak For Power.

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

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.

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.

Silence Is One Great Art Of Conversation.

Hope Is The Best Possession.

The Soul Of A Journey Is Liberty, Perfect Liberty, To Think, Feel, Do Just As One Pleases.

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?

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

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.

The Most Violent Friendships Soonest Wear Themselves Out.

There Is No One Thoroughly Despicable. We Cannot Descend Much Lower Than An Idiot; And An Idiot Has Some Advantages Over A Wise Man.

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

To Write A Genuine Familiar Or Truly English Style Is To Write As Anyone Would Speak In Common Conversation, Who Had A Thorough Command And Choice Of Words, Or Who Could Discourse With Ease, Force, And Perspicuity, Setting Aside All Pedantic And Oratorical Flourishes.

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

Natural Affection Is A Prejudice; For Though We Have Cause To Love Our Nearest Connections Better Than Others, We Have No Reason To Think Them Better Than Others.

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

No Really Great Man Ever Thought Himself So.

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

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.

People Addicted To Secrecy Are So Without Knowing Why; They Are Not So For Cause, But For Secrecy's Sake.

Prosperity Is A Great Teacher; Adversity A Greater.

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

Like A Rustic At A Fair, We Are Full Of Amazement And Rapture, And Have No Thought Of Going Home, Or That It Will Soon Be Night.

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

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.

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.

Envy Among Other Ingredients Has A Mixture Of The Love Of Justice In It. We Are More Angry At Undeserved Than At Deserved Good-fortune.

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

The Vain Man Makes A Merit Of Misfortune, And Triumphs In His Disgrace.

Good Temper Is An Estate For Life.

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

Virtue Steals, Like A Guilty Thing, Into The Secret Haunts Of Vice And Infamy, Clings To Their Devoted Victim, And Will Not Be Driven Quite Away. Nothing Can Destroy The Human Heart.

Poetry Is Only The Highest Eloquence Of Passion, The Most Vivid Form Of Expression That Can Be Given To Our Conception Of Anything, Whether Pleasurable Or Painful, Mean Or Dignified, Delightful Or Distressing. It Is The Perfect Coincidence Of The Image And The Words With The Feeling We Have, And Of Which We Cannot Get Rid In Any Other Way, That Gives An Instant "satisfaction To The Thought." This Is Equally The Origin Of Wit And Fancy, Of Comedy And Tragedy, Of The Sublime And Pathetic.

It Is Only Necessary To Raise A Bugbear Before The English Imagination In Order To Govern It At Will. Whatever They Hate Or Fear, They Implicitly Believe In, Merely From The Scope It Gives To These Passions.

The Affected Modesty Of Most Women Is A Decoy For The Generous, The Delicate, And Unsuspecting; While The Artful, The Bold, And Unfeeling Either See Or Break Through Its Slender Disguises.

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

There Is A Feeling Of Eternity In Youth Which Makes Us Amends For Everything. To Be Young Is To Be As One Of The Immortals.

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

Everything Is In Motion. Everything Flows. Everything Is Vibrating.

Wit Is, In Fact, The Eloquence Of Indifference.

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.

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

Satirists Gain The Applause Of Others Through Fear, Not Through Love.

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

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

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

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

Love May Turn To Indifference With Possession.

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

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.

Love At First Sight Is Only Realizing An Imagination That Has Always Haunted Us; Or Meeting With A Face, A Figure, Or Cast Of Expression In Perfection That We Have Seen And Admired In A Less Degree Or In Less Favorable Circumstances A Hundred Times Before.

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

The Greatest Offence Against Virtue Is To Speak Ill Of It.

To Great Evils We Submit, We Resent Little Provocations.

Learning Is, In Too Many Cases, But A Foil To Common Sense; A Substitute For True Knowledge. Books Are Less Often Made Use Of As Spectacles To Look At Nature With, Than As Blinds To Keep Out Its Strong Light And Shifting Scenery From Weak Eyes And Indolent Dispositions. The Learned Are Mere Literary Drudges.

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.

One Said A Tooth Drawer Was A Kind Of Unconscionable Trade, Because His Trade Was Nothing Else But To Take Away Those Things Whereby Every Man Gets His Living.

We Never Do Anything Well Till We Cease To Think About The Manner Of Doing It. This Is The Reason Why It Is So Difficult For Any But Natives To Speak A Language Correctly Or Idiomatically.

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.

We Prefer Ourselves To Others, Only Because We A Have More Intimate Consciousness And Confirmed Opinion Of Our Own Claims And Merits Than Of Any Other Person's.

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

We Do Not Attend To The Advice Of The Sage And Experienced Because We Think They Are Old, Forgetting That They Once Were Young And Placed In The Same Situations As Ourselves.

I Am Not, In The Ordinary Acceptation Of The Term, A Good-natured Man; That Is, Many Things Annoy Me Besides What Interferes With My Own Ease And Interest. I Hate A Lie; A Piece Of Injustice Wounds Me To The Quick, Though Nothing But The Report Of It Reach Me. Therefore I Have Made Many Enemies And Few Friends; For The Public Know Nothing Of Well-wishers, And Keep A Wary Eye On Those Who Would Reform Them.

No Truly Great Person Ever Thought Themselves So.

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

No Man Can Thoroughly Master More Than One Art Or Science.

We Must Be Doing Something To Be Happy.

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.

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

Art Is The Microscope Of The Mind, Which Sharpens The Wit As The Other Does The Sight; And Converts Every Object Into A Little Universe In Itself. Art May Be Said To Draw Aside The Veil From Nature. To Those Who Are Perfectly Unskilled In The Practice, Unimbued With The Principles Of Art, Most Objects Present Only A Confused Mass.

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

The Art Of Pleasing Consists In Being Pleased.

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.

The Youth Is Better Than The Old Age Of Friendship.

It Is Easier Taking The Beaten Path Than Making Our Way Over Bogs And Precipices. The Great Difficulty In Philosophy Is To Come To Every Question With A Mind Fresh And Unshackled By Former Theories, Though Strengthened By Exercise And Information.

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

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

But Of All Footmen The Lowest Class Is Literary Footmen.

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.

Lying Is The Strongest Acknowledgement Of The Force Of Truth.

Acknowledgement

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

Books Let Us Into Their Souls And Lay Open To Us The Secrets Of Our Own.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

While We Desire, We Do Not Enjoy; And With Enjoyment Desire Ceases.

However We May Flatter Ourselves To The Contrary, Our Friends Think No Higher Of Us Than The World Do. They See Us Through The Jaundiced Or Distrustful Eyes Of Others. They May Know Better, But Their Feelings Are Governed By Popular Prejudice. Nay, They Are More Shy Of Us (when Under A Cloud) Than Even Strangers; For We Involve Them In A Common Disgrace, Or Compel Them To Embroil Themselves In Continual Quarrels And Disputes In Our Defense.

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

Positive Thinking

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

We Learn To Curb Our Will And Keep Our Overt Actions Within The Bounds Of Humanity, Long Before We Can Subdue Our Sentiments And Imaginations To The Same Mild Tone.

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

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

Anyone Must Be Mainly Ignorant Or Thoughtless, Who Is Surprised At Everything He Sees; Or Wonderfully Conceited Who Expects Everything To Conform To His Standard Of Propriety.

Vice Is Man's Nature: Virtue Is A Habit--or A Mask.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Only Impeccable Writers Are Those Who Never Wrote.

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.

[science Is] The Desire To Know Causes.

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.

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.

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

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

To-day Kings, To-marrow Beggars, It Is Only When They Are Themselves That They Are Nothing.

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

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.

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

Vice, Like Disease, Floats In The Atmosphere.

The Mind Revolts Against Certain Opinions, As The Stomach Rejects Certain Foods.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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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 More We Do, The More We Can Do.

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Famous Motivational

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.

Dandyism Is A Variety Of Genius.

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