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It Has Been The Resolution Of Mankind In All Ages Of The World. No People, No Age, Ever Threw Away The Fruits Of Past Wisdom, Or The Enjoyment Of Present Blessings, For Visionary Schemes Of Ideal Perfection. It Is The Knowledge Of The Past, The Actual Infliction Of The Present, That Has Produced All Changes, All Innovations, And All Improvements - Not (as Is Pretended) The Chimerical Anticipation Of Possible Advantages, But The Intolerable Pressure Of Long-established, Notorious, Aggravated, And Growing Abuses.

-William Hazlitt

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It Has Been The

William Hazlitt

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It Has Been The Resolution Of Mankind In All Ages Of The World. No People, No Age, Ever Threw Away The Fruits Of Past Wisdom, Or The Enjoyment Of Present Blessings, For Visionary Schemes Of Ideal Perfection. It Is The Knowledge Of The Past, The Actual Infliction Of The Present, That Has Produced All Changes, All Innovations, And All Improvements - Not (as Is Pretended) The Chimerical Anticipation Of Possible Advantages, But The Intolerable Pressure Of Long-established, Notorious, Aggravated, And Growing Abuses.

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

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

We Often Choose A Friend As We Do A Mistress - For No Particular Excellence In Themselves, But Merely From Some Circumstance That Flatters Our Self-love.

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

A Great Mind Is One That Can Forget Or Look Beyond Itself.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Positive Thinking

Wit Is The Salt Of Conversation, Not The Food.

It Has Been The Resolution Of Mankind In All Ages Of The World. No People, No Age, Ever Threw Away The Fruits Of Past Wisdom, Or The Enjoyment Of Present Blessings, For Visionary Schemes Of Ideal Perfection. It Is The Knowledge Of The Past, The Actual Infliction Of The Present, That Has Produced All Changes, All Innovations, And All Improvements - Not (as Is Pretended) The Chimerical Anticipation Of Possible Advantages, But The Intolerable Pressure Of Long-established, Notorious, Aggravated, And Growing Abuses.

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.

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

An Honest Man Is Respected By All Parties.

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.

People Do Not Seem To Talk For The Sake Of Expressing Their Opinions, But To Maintain An Opinion For The Sake Of Talking.

Confidence Gives A Fool The Advantage Over A Wise Man.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Lying Is The Strongest Acknowledgement Of The Force Of Truth.

Acknowledgement

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.

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

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

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

We All Wear Some Disguise, Make Some Professions, Use Some Artifice, To Set Ourselves Off As Being Better Than We Are; And Yet It Is Not Denied That We Have Some Good Intentions And Praiseworthy Qualities At Bottom.

Good Intentions

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.

The Mind Of Man Is Like A Clock That Is Always Running Down, And Requires To Be Constantly Wound Up.

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.

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

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.

Belief Is With Them Mechanical, Voluntary: They Believe What They Are Paid For - They Swear To That Which Turns To Account. Do You Suppose, That After Years Spent In This Manner, They Have Any Feeling Left Answering To The Difference Between Truth And Falsehood?

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

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

A Strong Passion For Any Object Will Ensure Success, For The Desire Of The End Will Point Out The Means.

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!

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

Our Energy Is In Proportion To The Resistance It Meets. We Attempt Nothing Great But From A Sense Of The Difficulties We Have To Encounter, We Persevere In Nothing Great But From A Pride In Overcoming Them.

The Contemplation Of Truth And Beauty Is The Proper Object For Which We Were Created, Which Calls Forth The Most Intense Desires Of The Soul, And Of Which It Never Tires.

To Speak Highly Of One With Whom We Are Intimate Is A Species Of Egotism. Our Modesty As Well As Our Jealousy Teaches Us Caution On This Subject.

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

The More We Do, The More We Can Do.

Leisure Activities

Famous Motivational

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.

Hope Is The Best Possession.

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

Reflection Brakes Men Cowards. There Is No Object That Can Be Put In Competition With Life, Unless It Is Viewed Through The Medium Of Passion, And We Are Hurried Away By The Impulse Of The Moment.

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

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

So I Have Loitered My Life Away, Reading Books, Looking At Pictures, Going To Plays, Hearing, Thinking, Writing On What Pleased Me Best. I Have Wanted Only One Thing To Make Me Happy, But Wanting That Have Wanted Everything.

The Ignorance Of The World Leaves One At The Mercy Of Its Malice.

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

The History Of Mankind Is A Romance, A Mask, A Tragedy, Constructed Upon The Principles Of Poetical Justice; It Is A Noble Or Royal Hunt, In Which What Is Sport To The Few Is Death To The Many, And In Which The Spectators Halloo And Encourage The Strong To Set Upon The Weak, And Cry Havoc In The Chase, Though They Do Not Share In The Spoil.

To Great Evils We Submit, We Resent Little Provocations.

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

The Worst Old Age Is That Of The Mind.

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

Self Confidence

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

Well I've Had A Happy Life.

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

Malice Often Takes The Garb Of Truth.

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.

The Art Of Life Is To Know How To Enjoy A Little And To Endure Very Much.

What Passes In The World For Talent Or Dexterity Or Enterprise Is Often Only A Want Of Moral Principle. We May Succeed Where Others Fail, Not From A Greater Share Of Invention, But From Not Being Nice In The Choice Of Expedients.

Prejudice Is The Child Of Ignorance.

People Try To Reconcile You To A Disappointment In Love By Asking Why You Should Cherish A Passion For An Object That Has Proved Itself Worthless. Had You Known This Before, You Would Not Have Encouraged The Passion; But That Having Been Once Formed, Knowledge Does Not Destroy It. If We Have Drank Poison, Finding It Out Does Not Prevent Its Being In Our Veins: So Passion Leaves Its Poison In The Mind!

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

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

Every Man Depends On The Quantity Of Sense, Wit, Or Good Manners He Brings Into Society For The Reception He Meets With In It.

The Characteristic Of Chaucer Is Intensity: Of Spencer, Remoteness: Of Milton Elevation And Of Shakespeare Everything.

Zeal Will Do More Than Knowledge.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Dandyism Is A Species Of Genius.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Pride Erects A Little Kingdom Of Its Own, And Acts As Sovereign In It.

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

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

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.

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

Love And Joy Are Twins Or Born Of Each Other.

Wit Is The Rarest Quality To Be Met With Among People Of Education, And The Most Common Among The Uneducated.

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.

When The Imagination Is Continually Led To The Brink Of Vice By A System Of Terror And Denunciations, People Fling Themselves Over The Precipice From The Mere Dread Of Falling.

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.

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.

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

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.

Those Who Object To Wit Are Envious Of It.

Mankind Are A Herd Of Knaves And Fools. It Is Necessary To Join The Crowd, Or Get Out Of Their Way, In Order Not To Be Trampled To Death By Them.

Principle Is A Passion For Truth.

The Incentive To Ambition Is The Love Of Power.

There Is Some Virtue In Almost Every Vice, Except Hypocrisy; And Even That, While It Is A Mockery Of Virtue, Is At The Same Time A Compliment To It.

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

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.

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

A Lively Blockhead In Company Is A Public Benefit. Silence Or Dulness By The Side Of Folly Looks Like Wisdom.

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

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

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.

Wonder At The First Sight Of Works Of Art May Be The Effect Of Ignorance And Novelty; But Real Admiration And Permanent Delight In Them Are The Growth Of Taste And Knowledge.

Talent Is The Capacity Of Doing Anything That Depends On Application And Industry And It Is A Voluntary Power, While Genius Is Involuntary.

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.

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.

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.

Power Is Pleasure; And Pleasure Sweetens Pain.

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

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.

He Is A Hypocrite Who Professes What He Does Not Believe; Not He Who Does Not Practice All He Wishes Or Approves.

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

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

The Idea Of What The Public Will Think Prevents The Public From Ever Thinking At All, And Acts As A Spell On The Exercise Of Private Judgment.

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?

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.

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.

The Youth Is Better Than The Old Age Of Friendship.

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.

Great Thoughts Reduced To Practice Become Great Acts.

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.

In What We Really Understand, We Reason But Little.

The Insolence Of The Vulgar Is In Proportion To Their Ignorance. They Treat Everything With Contempt Which They Do Not Understand.

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

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

Good Temper Is An Estate For Life.

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 Corpse Of Friendship Is Not Worth Embalming.

Some People Break Promises For The Pleasure Of Breaking Them.

Keeping Promises

In Public Speaking, We Must Appeal Either To The Prejudices Of Others, Or To The Love Of Truth And Justice. If We Think Merely Of Displaying Our Own Ability, We Shall Ruin Every Cause We Undertake.

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

Experience Makes Us Wise.

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

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 I Mean By Living To One's-self Is Living In The World, As In It, Not Of It: It Is As If No One Know There Was Such A Person, And You Wished No One To Know It: It Is To Be A Silent Spectator Of The Mighty Scene Of Things, Not An Object Of Attention Or Curiosity In It; To Take A Thoughtful, Anxious Interest In What Is Passing In The World, But Not To Feel The Slightest Inclination To Make Or Meddle With It.

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 Garb Of Religion Is The Best Cloak For Power.

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.

Vulgar Prejudices Are Those Which Arise Out Of Accident, Ignorance, Or Authority; Natural Prejudices Are Those Which Arise Out Of The Constitution Of The Human Mind Itself.

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

It Is Well There Is No One Without Fault; For He Would Not Have A Friend In The World. He Would Seem To Belong To S Different Species.

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

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

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

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.

Books Wind Into The Heart.

A Man Is A Hypocrite Only When He Affects To Take A Delight In What He Does Not Feel, Not Because He Takes A Perverse Delight In Opposite Things.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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."

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.

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

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

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

Asleep, Nobody Is A Hypocrite

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.

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

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.

I Maintain That There Is No Common Language Or Medium Of Understanding Between People Of Education And Without It - Between Those Who Judge Of Things From Books Or From Their Senses. Ignorance Has So Far The Advantage Over Learning; For It Can Make An Appeal To You From What You Know; But You Cannot Re-act Upon It Through That Which It Is A Perfect Stranger To. Ignorance Is, Therefore, Power.

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

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

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.

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

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

I Like A Person Who Knows His Own Mind And Sticks To It; Who Sees At Once What, In Given Circumstances, Is To Be Done, And Does It.

Landscape Painting Is The Obvious Resource Of Misanthropy.

Landscape Painting

We Must Be Doing Something To Be Happy.

The Assumption Of Merit Is Easier, Less Embarrassing, And More Effectual Than The Actual Attainment Of 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.

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

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

Spleen Can Subsist On Any Kind Of Food.

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.

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

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

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

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

A Really Great Man Has Always An Idea Of Something Greater Than Himself.

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.

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.

Whatever Excites The Spirit Of Contradiction Is Capable Of Producing The Last Effects Of Heroism; Which Is Only The Highest Pitch Of Obstinacy, In A Good Or Bad Cause, In Wisdom Or Folly.

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