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It Is Generally Allowed, That No Man Ever Found The Happiness Of Possession Proportionate To That Expectation Which Incited His Desire, And Invigorated His Pursuit; Nor Has Any Man Found The Evils Of Life So Formidable In Reality, As They Were Described To Him By His Own Imagination; Every Species Of Distress Brings With It Some Peculiar Supports, Some Unforeseen Means Of Resisting, Or Powers Of Enduring.

-Samuel Johnson

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It Is Generally Allowed,

Samuel Johnson

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It Is Generally Allowed, That No Man Ever Found The Happiness Of Possession Proportionate To That Expectation Which Incited His Desire, And Invigorated His Pursuit; Nor Has Any Man Found The Evils Of Life So Formidable In Reality, As They Were Described To Him By His Own Imagination; Every Species Of Distress Brings With It Some Peculiar Supports, Some Unforeseen Means Of Resisting, Or Powers Of Enduring.

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Instead Of Rating The Man By His Performances, We Rate Too Frequently The Performances By The Man.

Books To Judicious Compilers, Are Useful; To Particular Arts And Professions, They Are Absolutely Necessary; To Men Of Real Science, They Are Tools: But More Are Tools To Them.

The Happiest Conversation Is That Of Which Nothing Is Distinctly Remembered, But A General Effect Of Pleasing Impression.

When A Man Says He Had Pleasure With A Woman He Does Not Mean Conversation.

Patriotism Is The Last Refuge Of The Scoundrel.

The Mathematicians Are Well Acquainted With The Difference Between Pure Science, Which Has Only To Do With Ideas, And The Application Of Its Laws To The Use Of Life, In Which They Are Constrained To Submit To The Imperfections Of Matter And The Influence Of Accidents.

No Money Is Better Spent Than What Is Laid Out For Domestic Satisfaction. A Man Is Pleased That His Wife Is Dressed As Well As Other People, And The Wife Is Pleased That She Is Dressed.

Novelty Is Indeed Necessary To Preserve Eagerness And Alacrity; But Art And Nature Have Stores Inexhaustible By Human Intellects, And Every Moment Produces Something New To Him Who Has Quickened His Faculties By Diligent Observation.

Nothing Is Little To Him That Feels It With Great Sensibility.

The Present Time Is Seldom Able To Fill Desire Or Imagination With Immediate Enjoyment, And We Are Forced To Supply Its Deficiencies By Recollection Or Anticipation.

Never Mind The Use--do It!

Many Causes May Vitiate A Writer's Judgement Of His Own Works. On That Which Has Cost Him Much Labour He Sets A High Value, Because He Is Unwilling To Think That He Has Been Diligent In Vain: What Has Been Produced Without Toilsome Efforts Is Considered With Delight As A Proof Of Vigorous Faculties And Fertile Invention; And The Last Work, Whatever It Be, Has Necessarily Most Of The Grace Of Novelty.

He Who Would Govern His Actions By The Laws Of Virtue Must Regulate His Thoughts By Those Of Reason.

Life Is Short. The Sooner That A Man Begins To Enjoy His Wealth The Better.

There Is ... Scarcely Any Species Of Writing Of Which We Can Tell What Is Its Essence, And What Are Its Constituents; Every New Genius Produces Some Innovation, Which, When Invented And Approved, Subverts The Rules Which The Practice Of Foregoing Authors Had Established.

The Whole World Is Put In Motion By The Wish For Riches And The Dread Of Poverty.

Nature Has Given Women So Much Power That The Law Has Very Wisely Given Them Little.

Sir, If You Wish To Have A Just Notion Of The Magnitude Of This City, You Must Not Be Satisfied With Seeing Its Great Streets And Squares, But Must Survey The Innumerable Little Lanes And Courts. It Is Not In The Showy Evolutions Of Buildings, But In The Multiplicity Of Human Habitations Which Are Crowded Together, That The Wonderful Immensity Of London Consists.

There Are Occasions On Which It Is Noble To Dare To Stand Alone. To Be Pious Among Infidels, To Be Disinterested In A Time Of General Venality, To Lead A Life Of Virtue And Reason In The Midst Of Sensualists, Is A Proof Of A Mind Intent On Nobler Things Than The Praise Or Blame Of Men, Of A Soul Fixed In The Contemplation Of The Highest Good, And Superiour To The Tyranny Of Custom And Example.

Sleep Is A State In Which A Great Part Of Every Life Is Passed. No Animal Has Yet Been Discovered, Whose Existence Is Not Varied With Intervals Of Insensibility; And Some Late Philosophers Have Extended The Empire Of Sleep Over The Vegetable World.

He That Would Travel For The Entertainment Of Others, Should Remember That The Great Object Of Remark Is Human Life. Every Nation Has Something Peculiar In Its Manufactures, Its Works Of Genius, Its Medicines, Its Agriculture, Its Customs, And Its Policy. He Only Is A Useful Traveller, Who Brings Home Something By Which His Country May Be Benefited; Who Procures Some Supply Of Want, Or Some Mitigation Of Evil, Which May Enable His Readers To Compare Their Condition With That Of Others, To Improve It Whenever It Is Worse, And Whenever It Is Better To Enjoy It.

This Man [chesterfield], I Thought, Had Been A Lord Among Wits; But I Find He Is Only A Wit Among Lords.

What Is Written Without Effort Is In General Read Without Pleasure.

Falsehoods Of Convenience Or Vanity, Falsehoods From Which No Evil Immediately Visible Ensues, Except The General Degradation Of Human Testimony, Are Very Lightly Uttered, And Once Uttered Are Sullenly Supported.

There Are Occasions On Which All Apology Is Rudeness.

Must Helpless Man, In Ignorance Sedate, Roll Darkly Down The Torrent Of His Fate.

They That Have Grown Old In A Single State Are Generally Found To Be Morose, Fretful And Captious; Tenacious Of Their Own Practices And Maxims; Soon Offended By Contradiction Or Negligence; And Impatient Of Any Association But With Those That Will Watch Their Nod, And Submit Themselves To Unlimited Authority.

Love Is Only One Of Many Passions.

That What Cannot Be Repaired Is Not To Be Regretted.

In All Political Regulations, Good Cannot Be Complete, It Can Only Be Predominant.

An Italian Philosopher Said That "time Was His Estate"; An Estate Indeed Which Will Produce Nothing Without Cultivation, But Will Always Abundantly Repay The Labors Of Industry, And Generally Satisfy The Most Extensive Desires, If No Part Of It Be Suffered To Lie In Waste By Negligence, To Be Overrun With Noxious Plants, Or Laid Out For Show Rather Than For Use.

That Fellow Seems To Me To Possess But One Idea, And That Is A Wrong One.

He That Accepts Protection, Stipulates Obedience.

Knowledge Is Of Two Kinds. We Know A Subject Ourselves, Or We Know Where We Can Find Information Upon It.

A Man May Be Very Sincere In Good Principles, Without Having Good Practice.

Keeping Accounts, Sir, Is Of No Use When A Man Is Spending His Own Money, And Has Nobody To Whom He Is To Account. You Won't Eat Less Beef Today Because You Have Written Down What It Cost Yesterday.

Excellence In Any Department Can Be Attained Only By The Labor Of A Lifetime; It Is Not To Be Purchased At A Lesser Price.

Most Minds Are The Slaves Of External Circumstances, And Conform To Any Hand That Undertakes To Mould Them.

I Never Take A Nap After Dinner But When I Have Had A Bad Night, And Then The Nap Takes Me.

In Order That All Men May Be Taught To Speak Truth, It Is Necessary That All Likewise Should Learn To Hear It; For No Species Of Falsehood Is More Frequent Than Flattery, To Which The Coward Is Betrayed By Fear, The Dependent By Interest, And The Friend By Tenderness: Those Who Are Neither Servile Nor Timorous Are Yet Desirous To Bestow Pleasure; And, While Unjust Demands Of Praise Continue To Be Made, There Will Always Be Some Whom Hope, Fear, Or Kindness Will Dispose To Pay Them.

There Is Reason To Suspect, That The Distinctions Of Mankind Have More Show Than Value, When It Is Found That All Agree To Be Weary Alike Of Pleasures And Of Cares; That The Powerful And The Weak, The Celebrated And Obscure, Join In One Common Wish, And Implore From Nature's Hand The Nectar Of Oblivion.

Men Who Could Willingly Resign The Luxuries And Sensual Pleasures Of A Large Fortune Cannot Consent To Live Without The Grandeur And The Homage.

I Doubt If There Ever Was A Man Who Was Not Gratified By Being Told That He Was Liked By The Women.

For Gold The Hireling Judge Distorts The Laws.

All Power Of Fancy Over Reason Is A Degree Of Madness.

There Is No Wisdom In Useless And Hopeless Sorrow, But There Is Something In It So Like Virtue, That He Who Is Wholly Without It Cannot Be Loved.

You Are Much Surer That You Are Doing Good When You Pay Money To Those Who Work, As The Recompense Of Their Labor, Than When You Give Money Merely In Charity.

It Is Justly Considered As The Greatest Excellency Of Art To Imitate Nature; But It Is Necessary To Distinguish Those Parts Of Nature Which Are Most Proper For Imitation: Greater Care Is Still Required In Representing Life, Which Is So Often Discoloured By Passion Or Deformed By Wickedness. If The World Be Promiscuously Described, I Cannot See Of What Use It Can Be To Read The Account; Or Why It May Not Be As Safe To Turn The Eye Immediately Upon Mankind, As Upon A Mirror Which Shows All That Presents Itself Without Discrimination.

A Continual Feast Of Commendation Is Only To Be Obtained By Merit Or By Wealth: Many Are Therefore Obliged To Content Themselves With Single Morsels, And Recompense The Infrequency Of Their Enjoyment By Excess And Riot, Whenever Fortune Sets The Banquet Before Them.

There Are Goods So Opposed That We Cannot Seize Both, But, By Too Much Prudence, May Pass Between Them At Too Great A Distance To Reach Either.

All Severity That Does Not Tend To Increase Good, Or Prevent Evil, Is Idle.

A Horse That Can Count To Ten Is A Remarkable Horse, Not A Remarkable Mathematician.

If The Guardian Or The Mother Tell The Woes Of Willful Waste, Scorn Their Counsel And Their Pother, You Can Hang Or Drown At Last.

Other Things May Be Seized By Might, Or Purchased With Money, But Knowledge Is To Be Gained Only By Study, And Study To Be Prosecuted Only In Retirement.

I Have Already Enjoyed Too Much; Give Me Something To Desire.

I Have All My Life Long Been Lying In Bed Till Noon; Yet I Tell All Young Men, And Tell Them With Great Sincerity, That Nobody Who Does Not Rise Early Will Ever Do Any Good.

Words Too Familiar, Or Too Remote, Defeat The Purpose Of A Poet.

I Have Always Suspected That The Reading Is Right, Which Requires Many Words To Prove It Wrong; And The Emendation Wrong, That Cannot Without So Much Labour Appear To He Right.

Expectation Improperly Indulged In Must End In Disappointment.

Never, My Dear Sir, Do You Take It Into Your Head That I Do Not Love You; You May Settle Yourself In Full Confidence Both Of My Love And My Esteem; I Love You As A Kind Man, I Value You As A Worthy Man, And Hope In Time To Reverence You As A Man Of Exemplary Piety.

To Paint Things As They Are Requires A Minute Attention, And Employs The Memory Rather Than The Fancy.

Works Of Imagination Excel By Their Allurement And Delight; By Their Power Of Attracting And Detaining The Attention. That Book Is Good In Vain Which The Reader Throws Away. He Only Is The Master Who Keeps The Mind In Pleasing Captivity; Whose Pages Are Perused With Eagerness, And In Hope Of New Pleasure Are Perused Again; And Whose Conclusion Is Perceived With An Eye Of Sorrow, Such As The Traveller Casts Upon Departing Day.

No Evil Is Insupportable But That Which Is Accompanied With Consciousness Of Wrong.

Resolve Not To Be Poor: Whatever You Have, Spend Less. Poverty Is A Great Enemy To Human Happiness; It Certainly Destroys Liberty, And It Makes Some Virtues Impracticable, And Others Extremely Difficult.

Silence Propagates Itself, And The Longer Talk Has Been Suspended, The More Difficult It Is To Find Anything To Say.

No Man Will Be Found In Whose Mind Airy Notions Do Not Sometimes Tyrannize, And Force Him To Hope Or Fear Beyond The Limits Of Sober Probability.

Hope Is Necessary In Every Condition. The Miseries Of Poverty, Sickness And Captivity Would, Without This Comfort, Be Insupportable.

Health Is Certainly More Valuable Than Money, Because It Is By Health That Money Is Procured.

All Travel Has Its Advantages. If The Passenger Visits Better Countries, He May Learn To Improve His Own. And If Fortune Carries Him To Worse, He May Learn To Enjoy It.

Ignorance Is Mere Privation By Which Nothing Can Be Produced: It Is A Vacuity In Which The Soul Sits Motionless And Torpid For Want Of Attraction: And, Without Knowing Why, We Always Rejoice When We Learn, And Grieve When We Forget.

Gaiety Is To Good-humor As Animal Perfumes To Vegetable Fragrance. The One Overpowers Weak Spirits, The Other Recreates And Revives Them. Gaiety Seldom Fails To Give Some Pain; Good-humor Boasts No Faculties Which Every One Does Not Believe In His Own Power, And Pleases Principally By Not Offending.

I Respect Millar, Sir: He Has Raised The Price Of Literature.

Few Moments Are More Pleasing Than Those In Which The Mind Is Concerting Measures For A New Undertaking.

Madam, Before You Flatter A Man So Grossly To His Face, You Should Consider Whether Or Not Your Flattery Is Worth His Having.

In Civilized Society We All Depend Upon Each Other, And Our Happiness Is Very Much Owing To The Good Opinion Of Mankind.

Their Origin Is Commonly Unknown; For The Practice Often Continues When The Cause Has Ceased, And Concerning Superstitious Ceremonies It Is In Vain To Conjecture; For What Reason Did Not Dictate, Reason Cannot Explain.

I Deny The Lawfulness Of Telling A Lie To A Sick Man For Fear Of Alarming Him; You Have No Business With Consequences, You Are To Tell The Truth.

An Author Places Himself Uncalled Before The Tribunal Of Criticism And Solicits Fame At The Hazard Of Disgrace.

It Is Dangerous For Mortal Beauty, Or Terrestrial Virtue, To Be Examined By Too Strong A Light. The Torch Of Truth Shows Much That We Cannot, And All That We Would Not, See.

A Man Has No More Right To Say An Uncivil Thing Than To Act One; No More Right To Say A Rude Thing To Another Than To Knock Him Down.

You Cannot, By All The Lecturing In The World, Enable A Man To Make A Shoe.

No Place Affords A More Striking Conviction Of The Vanity Of Human Hopes Than A Public Library; For Who Can See The Wall Crowded On Every Side By Mighty Volumes, The Works Of Laborious Meditations And Accurate Inquiry, Now Scarcely Known But By The Catalogue.

It May Be Laid Down As A Position Which Seldom Deceives, That When A Man Cannot Bear His Own Company, There Is Something Wrong.

Life Of Ages, Richly Poured, Love Of God Unspent And Free, Flowing In The Prophet's Word And The People's Liberty! Never Was To Chosen Race That Unstinted Tide Confined; Thine Is Every Time And Place, Fountain Sweet Of Heart And Mind!

We Have Always Pretensions To Fame Which, In Our Own Hearts, We Know To Be Disputable.

Frugality May Be Termed The Daughter Of Prudence, The Sister Of Temperance, And The Parent Of Liberty.

Everybody Loves To Have Things Which Please The Palate Put In Their Way, Without Trouble Or Preparation.

Some Have Little Power To Do Good, And Have Likewise Little Strength To Resist Evil.

Difference Of Thoughts Will Produce Difference Of Language. He That Thinks With More Extent Than Another, Will Want Words Of A Larger Meaning; He That Thinks With More Subtilty Will Seek For Terms Of More Nice Discrimination; And Where Is The Wonder, Since Words Are But The Images Of Things, That He Who Never Knew The Original Should Not Know The Copies?

We May Take Fancy For A Companion, But Must Follow Reason As Our Guide.

But It Is Evident, That These Bursts Of Universal Distress Are More Dreaded Than Felt; Thousands And Ten Thousands Flourish In Youth, And Wither In Age, Without The Knowledge Of Any Other Than Domestic Evils, And Share The Same Pleasures And Vexations, Whether Their Kings Are Mild Or Cruel, Whether The Armies Of Their Country Pursue Their Enemies Or Retreat Before Them.

No Man Is Defeated Without Some Resentment Which Will Be Continued With Obstinacy While He Believes Himself In The Right, And Asserted With Bitterness, If Even To His Own Conscience He Is Detected In The Wrong.

Sir, They Are A Race Of Convicts, And Ought To Be Thankful For Any Thing We Allow Them Short Of Hanging.

Pain Is Less Subject Than Pleasure To Careless Expression.

Between Falsehood And Useless Truth There Is Little Difference. As Gold Which He Cannot Spend Will Make No Man Rich, So Knowledge Which Cannot Apply Will Make No Man Wise.

One Of The Amusements Of Idleness Is Reading Without Fatigue Of Close Attention; And The World, Therefore, Swarms With Writers Whose Wish Is Not To Be Studied, But To Be Read.

Much Mischief Is Done In The World With Very Little Interest Or Design.

If Misery Be The Effect Of Virtue, It Ought To Be Reverenced; If Of Ill-fortune, To Be Pitied; And If Of Vice, Not To Be Insulted, Because It Is Perhaps Itself A Punishment Adequate To The Crime By Which It Was Produced.

High People, Sir, Are The Best; Take A Hundred Ladies Of Quality, You'll Find Them Better Wives, Better Mothers, More Willing To Sacrifice Their Own Pleasures To Their Children, Than A Hundred Other Woman.

There Are Some Works Which The Authors Must Consign Unpublished To Posterity, However Uncertain Be The Event, However Hopeless Be The Trust. He That Writes The History Of His Own Times, If He Adhere Steadily To Truth, Will Write That Which His Own Times Will Not Easily Endure. He Must Be Content To Reposite His Book Till All Private Passions Shall Cease, And Love And Hatred Give Way To Curiosity.

Levellers Wish To Level Down As Far As Themselves; But They Cannot Bear Levelling Up To Themselves.

A Blade Of Grass Is Always A Blade Of Grass, Whether In One Country Or Another.

There Ambush Here Relentless Ruffians Lay, And Here The Fell Attorney Prowls For Prey.

You May Abuse A Tragedy, Though You Cannot Write One. You May Scold A Carpenter Who Has Made You A Bad Table, Though You Cannot Make A Table. It Is Not Your Trade To Make Tables.

When First The College Rolls Receive His Name, The Young Enthusiast Quilts His Ease For Fame; Through All His Veins The Fever Of Renown Burns From The Strong Contagion Of The Gown

No Man Tells His Opinion So Freely As When He Imagines It Received With Implicit Veneration.

To Build Is To Be Robbed.

As To The Christian Religion, Besides The Strong Evidence Which We Have For It, There Is A Balance In Its Favor From The Number Of Great Men Who Have Been Convinced Of Its Truth After A Serious Consideration Of The Question. Grotius Was An Acute Man, A Lawyer, A Man Accustomed To Examine Evidence, And He Was Convinced. Grotius Was Not A Recluse, But A Man Of The World, Who Certainly Had No Bias On The Side Of Religion. Sir Isaac Newton Set Out An Infidel, And Came To Be A Very Firm Believer.

Few Men Survey Themselves With So Much Severity As Not To Admit Prejudices In Their Own Favour, Which An Artful Flatterer May Gradually Strengthen, Till Wishes For A Particular Qualification Are Improved To Hopes Of Attainment, And Hopes Of Attainment To Belief Of Possession.

I Would Advise No Man To Marry Who Is Not Likely To Propagate Understanding.

None But Those Who Have Learned The Art Of Subjecting Their Senses As Well As Reason To Hypothetical Systems Can Be Persuaded By The Most Specious Rhetorician That The Lots Of Life Are Equal; Yet It Cannot Be Denied That Every One Has His Peculiar Pleasures And Vexations, That External Accidents Operate Variously Upon Different Minds, And That No Man Can Exactly Judge From His Own Sensations What Another Would Feel In The Same Circumstances.

Unintelligible Language Is A Lantern Without A Light.

From Ignorance Our Comfort Flows, The Only Wretched Are The Wise

The Richest Author That Ever Grazed The Common Of Literature.

The Faults Of A Man Loved Or Honoured Sometimes Steal Secretly And Imperceptibly Upon The Wise And Virtuous, But By Injudicious Fondness Or Thoughtless Vanity Are Adopted With Design.

Ignorance, When It Is Voluntary, Is Criminal; And He May Be Properly Charged With Evil Who Refused To Learn How He Might Prevent It.

If A Man Begins To Read In The Middle Of A Book, And Feels An Inclination To Go On, Let Him Not Quit It To Go To The Beginning. He May Perhaps Not Feel Again The Inclination.

There Is Scarcely Any Writer Who Has Not Celebrated The Happiness Of Rural Privacy, And Delighted Himself And His Reader With The Melody Of Birds, The Whisper Of Groves, And The Murmur Of Rivulets.

Deviation From Nature Is Deviation From Happiness.

Once A Coxcomb, Always A Coxcomb.

False Taste Is Always Busy To Mislead Those That Are Entering Upon The Regions Of Learning; And The Traveller, Uncertain Of His Way, And Forsaken By The Sun, Will Be Pleased To See A Fainter Orb Arise On The Horizon, That May Rescue Him From Total Darkness, Though With Weak And Borrowed Lustre.

Nature Never Gives Everything At Once.

For Life Affords No Higher Pleasure, Than That Of Surmounting Difficulties, Passing From One Step Of Success To Another, Forming New Wishes And Seeing Them Gratified. He That Labours In Any Great Or Laudable Undertaking, Has His Fatigues First Supported By Hope, And Afterwards Rewarded By Joy... To Strive With Difficulties, And To Conquer Them, Is The Highest Human Felicity.

Parents And Children Seldom Act In Concert: Each Child Endeavors To Appropriate The Esteem Or Fondness Of The Parents, And The Parents, With Yet Less Temptation, Betray Each Other To Their Children.

We May Have Uneasy Feelings For Seeing A Creature In Distress Without Pity; For We Have Not Pity Unless We Wish To Relieve Them.

New Things Are Made Familiar, And Familiar Things Are Made New.

Familiar Things

Patron: One Who Countenances, Supports Or Protects. Commonly A Wretch Who Supports With Insolence, And Is Repaid In Flattery.

What Is Said Upon A Subject Is Gathered From An Hundred People.

To Prevent Evil Is The Great End Of Government, The End For Which Vigilance And Severity Are Properly Employed.

Some Read For Style, And Some For Argument: One Has Little Care About The Sentiment, He Observes Only How It Is Expressed; Another Regards Not The Conclusion, But Is Diligent To Mark How It Is Inferred; They Read For Other Purposes Than The Attainment Of Practical Knowledge; And Are No More Likely To Grow Wise By An Examination Of A Treatise Of Moral Prudence, Than An Architect To Inflame His Devotion By Considering Attentively The Proportions Of A Temple.

The Friendship Which Is To Be Practised Or Expected By Common Mortals, Must Take Its Rise From Mutual Pleasure, And Must End When The Power Ceases Of Delighting Each Other.

Corneille Is To Shakespeare As A Clipped Hedge Is To A Forest.

So Willing Is Every Man To Flatter Himself, That The Difference Between Approving Laws, And Obeying Them, Is Frequently Forgotten; He That Acknowledges The Obligations Of Morality And Pleases His Vanity With Enforcing Them To Others, Concludes Himself Zealous In The Cause Of Virtue.

The Return Of My Birthday, If I Remember It, Fills Me With Thoughts Which It Seems To Be The General Care Of Humanity To Escape.

The World Is Seldom What It Seems; To Man, Who Dimly Sees, Realities Appear As Dreams, And Dreams Realities.

He Who Expects Much Will Be Often Disappointed; Yet Disappointment Seldom Cures Us Of Expectation, Or Has Any Other Effect Than That Of Producing A Moral Sentence Or Peevish Exclamation.

Be Not Too Hasty To Trust Or To Admire The Teachers Of Morality; They Discourse Like Angels, But They Live Like Men.

Perhaps Man Is The Only Being That Can Properly Be Called Idle.

I Do Not Much Wish Well To Discoveries, For I Am Always Afraid They Will End In Conquest And Robbery.

Even Those To Whom Providence Has Allotted Greater Strength Of Understanding Can Expect Only To Improve A Single Science.

Of The Blessings Set Before You Make Your Choice, And Be Content. No Man Can Taste The Fruits Of Autumn While He Is Delighting His Scent With The Flowers Of The Spring: No Man Can, At The Same Time, Fill His Cup From The Source And From The Mouth Of The Nile.

You Hesitate To Stab Me With A Word, And Know Not - Silence Is The Sharper Sword.

The Really Happy Woman Is The One Who Can Enjoy The Scenery When She Has To Take A Detour. Happiness Is Not A State To Arrive At, But Rather A Manner Of Traveling.

Governors Being Accustomed To Hear Of More Crimes Than They Can Punish, And More Wrongs Than They Can Redress, Set Themselves At Ease By Indiscriminate Negligence, And Presently Forget The Request When They Lose Sight Of The Petitioner.

The Desires Of Man Increase With His Acquisitions.

Pension: An Allowance Made To Anyone Without An Equivalent. In England It Is Generally Understood To Mean Pay Given To A State Hireling For Treason To His Country.

At Seventy-seven It Is Time To Be In Earnest.

To Expect That The Intricacies Of Science Will Be Pierced By A Careless Glance, Or The Eminences Of Fame Ascended Without Labour, Is To Expect A Peculiar Privilege, A Power Denied To The Rest Of Mankind; But To Suppose That The Maze Is Inscrutable To Diligence, Or The Heights Inaccessible To Perseverance, Is To Submit Tamely To The Tyranny Of Fancy, And Enchain The Mind In Voluntary Shackles.

Every Class Of Society Has Its Cant Of Lamentation, Which Is Understood Or Regarded By None But Themselves; And Every Part Of Life Has Its Uneasiness, Which Those Who Do Not Feel Them Will Not Commiserate. An Event Which Spreads Distraction Over Half The Commercial World, Assembles The Trading Companies In Councils And Committees, And Shakes The Nerves Of A Thousand Stockjobbers, Is Read By The Landlord And The Farmer With Frigid Indifference.

There Is Little Peace Or Comfort In Life If We Are Always Anxious As To Future Events. He That Worries Himself With The Dread Of Possible Contingencies Will Never Be At Rest.

Men Become Friends By A Community Of Pleasures.

The Greatest Part Of A Writer's Time Is Spent In Reading In Order To Write. A Man Will Turn Over Half A Library To Make A Book.

It Is Strange That There Should Be So Little Reading In The World, And So Much Writing. People In General Do Not Willingly Read, If They Can Have Any Thing Else To Amuse Them.

I Know Not, Madam, That You Have A Right, Upon Moral Principles, To Make Your Readers Suffer So Much.

All The Arguments Which Are Brought To Represent Poverty As No Evil Show It Evidently To Be A Great Evil.

Mutual Cowardice Keeps Us In Peace.

Read The Book You Do Honestly Feel A Wish And Curiosity To Read.

It Is Much Easier Not To Write Like A Man Than To Write Like A Woman.

Cowardice Encroaches Fast Upon Such As Spend Their Lives In Company Of Persons Higher Than Themselves.

Extended Empires Are Like Expanded Gold, Exchanging Solid Strength For Feeble Splendor.

If A Man Has A Science To Learn He Must Regularly And Resolutely Advance.

No Man Will Be A Sailor Who Has Contrivance Enough To Get Himself Into A Jail; For Being In A Ship Is Being In A Jail, With The Chance Of Being Drowned... A Man In A Jail Has More Room, Better Food, And Commonly Better Company.

Sorrow Is Properly That State Of The Mind In Which Our Desires Are Fixed Upon The Past Without Looking Forward To The Future.

The Process Is The Reality.

All Discourse Of Which Others Cannot Partake Is Not Only An Irksome Usurpation Of The Time Devoted To Pleasure And Entertainment, But, What Never Fails To Excite Resentment, An Insolent Assertion Of Superiority, And A Triumph Over Less Enlightened Understandings. The Pedant Is, Therefore, Not Only Heard With Weariness But Malignity; And Those Who Conceive Themselves Insulted By His Knowledge Never Fail To Tell With Acrimony How Injudiciously It Was Exerted.

That Man Is Never Happy For The Present Is So True, That All His Relief From Unhappiness Is Only Forgetting Himself For A Little While. Life Is A Progress From Want To Want, Not From Enjoyment To Enjoyment.

Tomorrow Is An Old Deceiver, And His Cheat Never Grows Stale.

A Man Who Is Good Enough To Go To Heaven Is Good Enough To Be A Clergyman.

Not Good Enough

Your Manuscript Is Both Good And Original; But The Part That Is Good Is Not Original, And The Part That Is Original Is Not Good.

Had I Learned To Fiddle, I Should Have Done Nothing Else.

Whatever Enlarges Hope Will Also Exalt Courage.

Commerce However We May Please Ourselves With The Contrary Opinion, Is One Of The Daughters Of Fortune, Inconstant And Deceitful As Her Mother. She Chooses Her Residence Where She Is Least Expected, And Shifts Her Abode When Her Continuance Is, In Appearance, Most Firmly Settled.

There Are Few So Free From Vanity As Not To Dictate To Those Who Will Hear Their Instructions With A Visible Sense Of Their Own Beneficence.

Being In A Ship Is Being In A Jail, With The Chance Of Being Drowned.

It Is The Just Doom Of Laziness And Gluttony To Be Inactive Without Ease And Drowsy Without Tranquility.

Yet Reason Frowns In War's Unequal Game, Where Wasted Nations Raise A Single Name; And Mortgag'd States Their Grandsire's Wreaths Regret, From Age To Age In Everlasting Debt; Wreaths Which At Last The Dear-bought Right Convey To Rust On Medals, Or On Stones Decay.

Unless A Woman Has An Amorous Heart, She Is A Dull Companion.

Yet It Is Necessary To Hope, Though Hope Should Always Be Deluded; For Hope Itself Is Happiness, And Its Frustrations, However Frequent, Are Yet Less Dreadsul Than Its Extinction.

Evil Is Uncertain In The Same Degree As Good, And For The Reason That We Ought Not To Hope Too Securely, We Ought Not To Fear With To Much Dejection.

Parents Are By No Means Exempt From The Intoxication Of Dominion.

Genius Is That Energy Which Collects, Combines, Amplifies, And Animates.

From All Our Observations We May Collect With Certainty, That Misery Is The Lot Of Man, But Cannot Discover In What Particular Condition It Will Find Most Alleviations.

Getting Money Is Not All A Man's Business: To Cultivate Kindness Is A Valuable Part Of The Business Of Life.

Disappointment, When It Involves Neither Shame Nor Loss, Is As Good As Success; For It Supplies As Many Images To The Mind, And As Many Topics To The Tongue.

To Be Idle And To Be Poor Have Always Been Reproaches, And Therefore Every Man Endeavors With His Utmost Care To Hide His Poverty From Others, And His Idleness From Himself.

People In Distress Never Think That You Feel Enough.

Piety Practiced In Solitude, Like The Flower That Blooms In The Desert, May Give Its Fragrance To The Winds Of Heaven, And Delight Those Unbodied Spirits That Survey The Works Of God And The Actions Of Men; But It Bestows No Assistance Upon Earthly Beings, And However Free From Taints Of Impurity, Yet Wants The Sacred Splendor Of Beneficence.

Tediousness Is The Most Fatal Of All Faults.

Curiosity Is, In Great And Generous Minds, The First Passion And The Last.

A Man Is Very Apt To Complain Of The Ingratitude Of Those Who Have Risen Far Above Him.

No Knowledge Is Useless, With The Exception Of Heraldry.

In Such A Government As Ours No Man Is Appointed To An Office Because He Is The Fittest For It--nor Hardly In Any Other Government--because There Are So Many Connections And Dependencies To Be Studied.

A Man Had Rather Have A Hundred Lies Told Of Him Than One Truth Which He Does Not Wish Should Be Told.

Your Aspirations Are Your Possibilities.

If, Sir, Men Were All Virtuous, I Should With Great Alacrity Teach Them All To Fly. But What Would Be The Security Of The Good If The Bad Could At Pleasure Invade Them From The Sky? Against An Army Sailing Through The Clouds Neither Wall, Nor Mountains, Nor Seas Could Afford Any Security.

Almost All Absurdity Of Conduct Arises From The Imitation Of Those Who We Cannot Resemble.

With What Hope Can We Endeavor To Persuade The Ladies That The Time Spent At The Toilet Is Lost In Vanity.

It Is Thus That Mutual Cowardice Keeps Us In Peace. Were One Half Of Mankind Brave And One Cowards, The Brave Would Be Always Beating The Cowards. Were All Brave, They Would Lead A Very Uneasy Life; All Would Be Continually Fighting; But Being All Cowards, We Go On Very Well.

Liberty Is The Parent Of Truth, But Truth And Decency Are Sometimes At Variance. All Men And All Propositions Are To Be Treated Here As They Deserve, And There Are Many Who Have No Claim Either To Respect Or Decency.

The Stream Of Time, Which Is Continually Washing The Dissoluble Fabrics Of Other Poets, Passes Without Injury By The Adamant Of Shakespeare.

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Charles Evans Hughes

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