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Language Is The Dress Of Thought; And As The Noblest Mien Or Most Graceful Action Would Be Degraded And Obscured By A Garb Appropriated To The Gross Employments Of Rusticks Or Mechanics, So The Most Heroick Sentiments Will Lose Their Efficacy

-Samuel Johnson

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Language Is The Dress

Samuel Johnson

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Language Is The Dress Of Thought; And As The Noblest Mien Or Most Graceful Action Would Be Degraded And Obscured By A Garb Appropriated To The Gross Employments Of Rusticks Or Mechanics, So The Most Heroick Sentiments Will Lose Their Efficacy

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

Words Become Low By The Occasions To Which They Are Applied, Or The General Character Of Them Who Use Them; And The Disgust Which They Produce Arises From The Revival Of Those Images With Which They Are Commonly United.

When A Man Feel The Reprehension Of A Friend Seconded By His Own Heart, He Is Easily Heated Into Resentment.

An Infallible Characteristic Of Meanness Is Cruelty.

Characteristics

Bias And Impartiality Is In The Eye Of The Beholder.

There Is No Temper More Unpropitious To Interest Than Desultory Application And Unlimited Inquiry, By Which The Desires Are Held In A Perpetual Equipoise, And The Mind Fluctuates Between Different Purposes Without Determination.

I Believe Marriages Would In General Be As Happy, And Often More So, If They Were All Made By The Lord Chancellor, Upon A Due Consideration Of The Characters And Circumstances, Without The Parties Having Any Choice In The Matter.

Whatever Enlarges Hope Will Also Exalt Courage.

No Man Is A Hypocrite In His Pleasures.

Friendship Is Not Always The Sequel Of Obligation.

There Seems To Be A Strange Affectation In Authors Of Appearing To Have Done Everything By Chance.

Advice, As It Always Gives A Temporary Appearance Of Superiority, Can Never Be Very Grateful, Even When It Is Most Necessary Or Most Judicious. But For The Same Reason Everyone Is Eager To Instruct His Neighbours. To Be Wise Or To Be Virtuous Is To Buy Dignity And Importance At A High Price; But When Nothing Is Necessary To Elevation But Detection Of The Follies Or Faults Of Others, No Man Is So Insensible To The Voice Of Fame As To Linger On The Ground.

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.

Wheresoe'er I Turn My View, All Is Strange, Yet Nothing New: Endless Labor All Along, Endless Labor To Be Wrong: Phrase That Time Has Flung Away; Uncouth Words In Disarray, Trick'd In Antique Ruff And Bonnet, Ode, And Elegy, And Sonnet.

Surely Nothing Is More Reproachful To A Being Endowed With Reason, Than To Resign Its Powers To The Influence Of The Air, And Live In Dependence On The Weather And The Wind, For The Only Blessings Which Nature Has Put Into Our Power, Tranquillity And Benevolence. To Look Up To The Sky For The Nutriment Of Our Bodies, Is The Condition Of Nature; To Call Upon The Sun For Peace And Gaiety, Or Deprecate The Clouds Lest Sorrow Should Overwhelm Us, Is The Cowardice Of Idleness, And The Idolatry Of Folly.

Never Believe Extraordinary Characters Which You Hear Of People. Depend Upon It, They Are Exaggerated. You Do Not See One Man Shoot A Great Deal Higher Than Another.

Wine Gives A Man Nothing. It Neither Gives Him Knowledge Nor Wit; It Only Animates A Man, And Enables Him To Bring Out What A Dread Of The Company Has Repressed. It Only Puts In Motion What Had Been Locked Up In Frost.

Pride Is A Vice, Which Pride Itself Inclines Every Man To Find In Others, And To Overlook In Himself

To Keep Your Secret Is Wisdom; But To Expect Others To Keep It Is Folly.

Keeping Secrets

We Are Perpetually Moralists, But We Are Geometricians Only By Chance. Our Intercourse With Intellectual Nature Is Necessary; Our Speculations Upon Matter Are Voluntary, And At Leisure.

There Is Nothing, Sir, Too Little For So Little A Creature As Man. It Is By Studying Little Things That We Attain The Great Art Of Having As Little Misery And As Much Happiness As Possible.

Misery Is Caused For The Most Part, Not By A Heavy Crush Of Disaster, But By The Corrosion Of Less Visible Evils, Which Canker Enjoyment, And Undermine Security. The Visit Of An Invader Is Necessarily Rare, But Domestic Animosities Allow No Cessation.

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.

There Are Few Minds To Which Tyranny Is Not Delightful.

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

Whatever Withdraws Us From The Power Of Our Senses; Whatever Makes The Past, The Distant, Or The Future, Predominate Over The Present, Advances Us In The Dignity Of Thinking Beings. Far From Me, And Far From My Friends Be Such Frigid Philosophy As May Conduct Us Indifferent And Unmoved Over Any Ground Which Has Been Dignified By Wisdom, Bravery, Or Virtue. That Man Is Little To Be Envied Whose Patriotism Would Not Gain Force Upon The Plain Of Marathon, Or Whose Piety Would Not Grow Warmer Among The Ruins Of Ionia.

Many Need No Other Provocation To Enmity Than That They Find Themselves Excelled.

In Life's Last Scene What Prodigies Surprise, Fears Of The Brave, And Follies Of The Wise! From Marlborough's Eyes The Streams Of Dotage Flow, And Swift Expires A Driveller And A Show.

Prudence Is An Attitude That Keeps Life Safe, But Does Not Often Make It Happy.

There Are In Every Age New Errors To Be Rectified And New Prejudices To Be Opposed.

The World Is Not Yet Exhausted: Let Me See Something Tomorrow Which I Never Saw Before.

The Best Part Of Every Author Is In General To Be Found In His Book, I Assure You.

There Must Always Be Some Advantage On One Side Or The Other, And It Is Better That Advantage Should Be Had By Talents Than By Chance.

Politeness Is Fictitious Benevolence. Depend Upon It, The Want Of It Never Fails To Produce Something Disagreeable To One Or Other.

Norway, Too, Has Noble Prospects; And Lapland Is Remarkable For Prodigious Noble Wild Prospects. But, Sir, Let Me Tell You, The Noblest Prospect Which A Scotchman Ever Sees Is The High Road That Leads Him To England!

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.

He That Embarks On The Voyage Of Life Will Always Wish To Advance Rather By The Impulse Of The Wind Than The Strokes Of The Oar; And Many Fold In Their Passage; While They Lie Waiting For The Gale.

Turn On The Prudent Ant, Thy Heedful Eyes, Observe Her Labours, Sluggard, And Be Wise.

A Man Of Sense And Education Should Meet A Suitable Companion In A Wife. It Is A Miserable Thing When The Conversation Can Only Be Such As Whether The Mutton Should Be Boiled Or Roasted, And Probably A Dispute About That.

Of The Blessings Set Before You Make Your Choice, And Be Content.

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

A Fellow Will Hack Half A Year At A Block Of Marble To Make Something In Stone That Hardly Resembles A Man. The Value Of Statuary Is Owing To Its Difficulty. You Would Not Value The Finest Head Cut Upon A Carrot.

Fine Clothes Are Good Only As They Supply The Want Of Other Means Of Procuring Respect.

That Distrust Which Intrudes So Often On Your Mind Is A Mode Of Melancholy, Which, If It Be The Business Of A Wise Man To Be Happy, It Is Foolish To Indulge; And If It Be A Duty To Preserve Our Faculties Entire For Their Proper Use, It Is Criminal. Suspicion Is Very Often An Useless Pain.

There Are Few Things That We So Unwillingly Give Up, Even In Advanced Age, As The Supposition That We Still Have The Power Of Ingratiating Ourselves With The Fair Sex.

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

Lawful And Settled Authority Is Very Seldom Resisted When It Is Well Employed.

Indolence Is The Devil's Cushion.

Politeness Is One Of Those Advantages Which We Never Estimate Rightly But By The Inconvenience Of Its Loss.

There Is A Certain Race Of Men That Either Imagine It Their Duty, Or Make It Their Amusement, To Hinder The Reception Of Every Work Of Learning Or Genius, Who Stand As Sentinels In The Avenues Of Fame, And Value Themselves Upon Giving Ignorance And Envy The First Notice Of A Prey.

The Synonyme Of Usury Is Ruin.

As The Mind Must Govern The Hands, So In Every Society The Man Of Intelligence Must Direct The Man Of Labor.

Memory Is The Primary And Fundamental Power, Without Which There Could Be No Other Intellectual Operation.

Consider What Importance To Society The Chastity Of Women Is. Upon That All The Property In The World Depends. We Hang A Thief For Stealing A Sheep; But The Unchastity Of A Woman Transfers Sheep And Farm And All From The Right Owner.

Cunning Has Effect From The Credulity Of Others, Rather Than From The Abilities Of Those Who Are Cunning. It Requires No Extraordinary Talents To Lie And Deceive.

Players, Sir! I Look On Them As No Better Than Creatures Set Upon Tables And Joint Stools To Make Faces And Produce Laughter, Like Dancing Dogs.

Men Know That Women Are An Overmatch For Them, And Therefore They Choose The Weakest Or The Most Ignorant. If They Did Not Think So, They Never Could Be Afraid Of Women Knowing As Much As Themselves.

Your Aspirations Are Your Possibilities.

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

Sir, A Man Who Cannot Get To Heaven In A Green Coat, Will Not Find His Way Thither The Sooner In A Grey One.

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.

When Female Minds Are Embittered By Age Or Solitude, Their Malignity Is Generally Exerted In A Rigorous And Spiteful Superintendence Of Domestic Trifles.

It Was His Peculiar Happiness That He Scarcely Ever Found A Stranger Whom He Did Not Leave A Friend; But It Must Likewise Be Added, That He Had Not Often A Friend Long Without Obliging Him To Become A Stranger.

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

A Tavern Chair Is The Throne Of Human Felicity.

Each Person's Work Is Always A Portrait Of Himself.

A Country Is In A Bad State, Which Is Governed Only By Laws; Because A Thousand Things Occur For Which Laws Cannot Provide, And Where Authority Ought To Interpose.

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.

Adversity Leads Us To Think Properly Of Our State, And So Is Most Beneficial To Us.

Life, To Be Worthy Of A Rational Being, Must Be Always In Progression; We Must Always Purpose To Do More Or Better Than In Time Past.

Men Do Not Suspect Faults Which They Do Not Commit

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.

Criticism, Though Dignified From The Earliest Ages By The Labours Of Men Eminent For Knowledge And Sagacity, Has Not Yet Attained The Certainty And Stability Of Science.

We Never Do Anything Consciously For The Last Time Without Sadness Of Heart.

No Cause More Frequently Produces Bashfulness Than Too High An Opinion Of Our Own Importance. He That Imagines An Assembly Filled With His Merit, Panting With Expectation, And Hushed With Attention, Easily Terrifies Himself With The Dread Of Disappointing Them, And Strains His Imagination In Pursuit Of Something That May Vindicate The Veracity Of Fame, And Show That His Reputation Was Not Gained By Chance.

So Many Objections May Be Made To Everything, That Nothing Can Overcome Them But The Necessity Of Doing Something.

Wisdom And Virtue Are By No Means Sufficient, Without The Supplemental Laws Of Good-breeding, To Secure Freedom From Degenerating Into Rudeness, Or Self Esteem From Swelling Into Insolence. A Thousand Incivilities May Be Committed, And A Thousand Offices Neglected. Without Any Remorse Of Conscience, Or Reproach From Reason.

The Irish Are A Fair People: They Never Speak Well Of One Another.

Ireland And The Irish

Pity Is Not Natural To Man. Children Always Are Cruel. Savages Are Always Cruel.

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.

Change Is Not Made Without Inconvenience.

Project Management

Man Is A Transitory Being, And His Designs Must Partake Of The Imperfections Of Their Author. To Confer Duration Is Not Always In Our Power. We Must Snatch The Present Moment, And Employ It Well, Without Too Much Solicitude For The Future, And Content Ourselves With Reflecting That Our Part Is Performed. He That Waits For An Opportunity To Do Much At Once, May Breathe Out His Life In Idle Wishes, And Regret, In The Last Hour, His Useless Intentions And Barren Zeal.

The Majority Of A Society Is The True Definition Of The Public.

It Was The Maxim, I Think, Of Alphonsus Of Aragon, That Dead Counsellors Are Safest. The Grave Puts An End To Flattery And Artifice, And The Information We Receive From Books Is Pure From Interest, Fear, And Ambition. Dead Counsellors Are Likewise Most Instructive, Because They Are Heard With Patience And With Reverence.

Life Is But Short; No Time Can Be Afforded But For The Indulgence Of Real Sorry, Or Contests Upon Questions Seriously Momentous. Let Us Not Throw Away Any Of Our Days Upon Useless Resentment, Or Contend Who Shall Hold Out Longest In Stubborn Malignity. It Is Best Not To Be Angry; And Best, In The Next Place, To Be Quickly Reconciled.

The Relief Of Enemies Has A Tendency To Unite Mankind In Fraternal Affection.

I Fancy Mankind May Come, In Time, To Write All Aphoristically, Except In Narrative; Grow Weary Of Preparation, And Connection, And Illustration, And All Those Arts By Which A Big Book Is Made.

Spite And Ill-nature Are Among The Most Expensive Luxuries In Life.

Every Man Who Attacks My Belief, Diminishes In Some Degree My Confidence In It, And Therefore Makes Me Uneasy; And I Am Angry With Him Who Makes Me Uneasy.

Wine Gives A Man Nothing... It Only Puts In Motion What Had Been Locked Up In Frost.

The Public Pleasures Of Far The Greater Part Of Mankind Are Counterfeit.

What A Strange Narrowness Of Mind Now Is That, To Think The Things We Have Not Known Are Better Than The Things We Have Known.

I Will Take No More Physick, Not Even My Opiates; For I Have Prayed That I May Render Up My Soul To God Unclouded.

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

Love Has No Great Influences Upon The Sum Of Life.

Distance Has The Same Effect On The Mind As On The Eye.

Sir, I Think All Christians, Whether Papists Or Protestants, Agree In The Essential Articles, And That Their Differences Are Trivial, And Rather Political Than Religious.

It Is Not Indeed Certain, That The Most Refined Caution Will Find A Proper Time For Bringing A Man To The Knowledge Of His Own Failing, Or The Most Zealous Benevolence Reconcile Him To That Judgment By Which They Are Detected; But He Who Endeavours Only The Happiness Of Him Whom He Reproves Will Always Have Either The Satisfaction Of Obtaining Or Deserving Kindness; If He Succeeds, He Benefits His Friend; And If He Fails, He Has At Least The Consciousness That He Suffers For Only Doing Well.

When A Poet Mentions The Spring, We Know That The Zephyrs Are About To Whisper, That The Groves Are To Recover Their Verdure, The Linnets To Warble Forth Their Notes Of Love, And The Flocks And Herds To Frisk Over Vales Painted With Flowers: Yet, Who Is There So Insensible Of The Beauties Of Nature, So Little Delighted With The Renovation Of The World, As Not To Feel His Heart Bound At The Mention Of The Spring?

When The Desire Of Wealth Is Taking Hold Of The Heart, Let Us Look Round And See How It Operates Upon Than Whose Industry Or Fortune Has Obtained It. When We Find Them Oppressed With Their Own Abundance, Luxurious Without Pleasure, Idle Without Ease, Impatient And Querulous In Themselves, And Despised Or Hated By The Rest Of Mankind, We Shall Soon Be Convinced That If The Real Wants Of Our Condition Are Satisfied, There Remains Little To Be Sought With Solicitude Or Desired With Eagerness.

Ah! Sir, A Boy's Being Flogged Is Not So Severe As A Man's Having The Hiss Of The World Against Him.

The Purpose Of A Writer Is To Be Read, And The Criticism Which Would Destroy The Power Of Pleasing Must Be Blown Aside

Faction Seldom Leaves A Man Honest, However It Might Find Him.

An Old Friend Never Can Be Found, And Nature Has Provided That He Cannot Easily Be Lost.

Like An Image In A Dream The World Is Troubled By Love, Hatred, And Other Poisons. So Long As The Dream Lasts, The Image Appears To Be Real; But On Awaking It Vanishes.

Of All The Griefs That Harass The Distress'd, Sure The Most Bitter Is A Scornful Jest; Fate Never Wounds More Deep The Generous Heart, Than When A Blockhead's Insult Points The Dart.

Among The Many Inconsistencies Which Folly Produces Or Infirmity Suffers In The Human Mind, There Has Often Been Observed A Manifest And Striking Contrariety Between The Life Of An Author And His Writings... Those Whom The Appearance Of Virtue Or The Evidence Of Genius Has Tempted To A Nearer Knowledge Of The Writer, In Whose Performances They May Be Found, Have Indeed Had Frequent Reason To Repent Their Curiosity.

Was Ever Poet So Trusted Before?

Frequent Discontent Must Proceed From Frequent Hardships.

A Man Used To Vicissitudes Is Not Easily Dejected.

Everybody Knows Worse Of Himself Than He Knows Of Other Men.

Power Is Not Sufficient Evidence Of Truth.

The Cure For The Greatest Part Of Human Miseries Is Not Radical, But Palliative.

Many Of Our Miseries Are Merely Comparative: We Are Often Made Unhappy, Not By The Presence Of Any Real Evil, But By The Absence Of Some Fictitious Good; Of Something Which Is Not Required By Any Real Want Of Nature, Which Has Not In Itself Any Power Of Gratification, And Which Neither Reason Nor Fancy Would Have Prompted Us To Wish, Did We Not See It In The Possession Of Others.

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.

Such Is The Constitution Of Man That Labour May Be Styled Its Own Reward; Nor Will Any External Incitements Be Requisite, If It Be Considered How Much Happiness Is Gained, And How Much Misery Escaped, By Frequent And Violent Agitation Of The Body.

London! The Needy Villain's General Home, The Common Sewer Of Paris And Of Rome! With Eager Thirst, By Folly Or By Fate, Sucks In The Dregs Of Each Corrupted State.

If I Have Said Something To Hurt A Man Once, I Shall Not Get The Better Of This By Saying Many Things To Please Him.

In Bed We Laugh, In Bed We Cry, And Born In Bed, In Bed We Die; The Near Approach A Bed May Show Of Human Bliss To Human Woe.

It Is A Hopeless Endeavour To Unite The Contrarieties Of Spring And Winter; It Is Unjust To Claim The Privileges Of Age, And Retain The Play-things Of Childhood.

It Matters Not How A Man Dies, But How He Lives.

I Do Not Care To Speak Ill Of A Man Behind His Back, But I Believe He Is An Attorney.

A Mere Literary Man Is A Dull Man; A Man Who Is Solely A Man Of Business Is A Selfish Man; But When Literature And Commerce Are United, They Make A Respectable Man.

The First Years Of Man Must Make Provision For The Last.

Of The Present State, Whatever It Be, We Feel And Are Forced To Confess The Misery; Yet When The Same State Is Again At A Distance, Imagination Paints It As Desirable.

I Will Be Conquered; I Will Not Capitulate.

In My Early Years I Read Very Hard. It Is A Sad Reflection, But A True One, That I Knew Almost As Much At Eighteen As I Do Now.

Quotation Is The Highest Compliment You Can Pay An Author.

Compliments You

Friendship, Peculiar Boon Of Heaven, The Noble Mind's Delight And Pride, To Men And Angels Only Given, To All The Lower World Denied.

Life Has No Pleasure Higher Or Nobler Than That Of Friendship.

Few Things Are So Liberally Bestowed, Or Squandered With So Little Effect, As Good Advice.

Rain Is Good For Vegetables, And For The Animals Who Eat Those Vegetables, And For The Animals Who Eat Those Animals.

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

Stand Firm For Your Country, And Become A Man Honour'd And Lov'd: It Were A Noble Life, To Be Found Dead, Embracing Her.

It Is Surely Very Narrow Policy That Supposes Money To Be The Chief Good.

Poverty Has, In Large Cities, Very Different Appearances; It Is Often Concealed In Splendour, And Often In Extravagance.

An Exotic And Irrational Entertainment.

To Revenge Reasonable Incredulity By Refusing Evidence, Is A Degree Of Insolence With Which The World Is Not Yet Acquainted; And Stubborn Audacity Is The Last Refuge Of Guilt.

I Had Done All That I Could, And No Man Is Well Pleased To Have His All Neglected, Be It Ever So Little.

Most Men Think Indistinctly, And Therefore Cannot Speak With Exactness . . .

No Man Is Without Some Quality, By The Due Application Of Which He Might Deserve Well Of The World; And Whoever He Be That Has But Little In His Power Should Be In Haste To Do That Little, Lest He Be Confounded With Him That Can Do Nothing.

When Any Anxiety Or Gloom Of The Mind Takes Hold Of You, Make It A Rule Not To Publish It By Complaining; But Exert Yourselves To Hide It, And By Endeavoring To Hide It You Drive It Away.

Let Him Go Abroad To A Distant Country; Let Him Go To Some Place Where He Is Not Known. Don't Let Him Go To The Devil, Where He Is Known.

There Should Be A Stated Day For Commemorating The Birthday Of Our Savior, Because There Is Danger That What May Be Done On Any Day, Will Be Neglected.

Happiness Is Enjoyed Only In Proportion As It Is Known; And Such Is The State Or Folly Of Man, That It Is Known Only By Experience Of Its Contrary.

A Man Who Both Spends And Saves Money Is The Happiest Man, Because He Has Both Enjoyments.

Don't Tell Me Of Deception; A Lie Is A Lie, Whether It Be A Lie To The Eye Or A Lie To The Ear.

Slavery Is Now Nowhere More Patiently Endured, Than In Countries Once Inhabited By The Zealots Of Liberty.

As Any Action Or Posture, Long Continued, Will Distort And Disfigure The Limbs, So The Mind Likewise Is Crippled And Contracted By Perpetual Application To The Same Set Of Ideas.

All Censure Of A Man's Self Is Oblique Praise. It Is In Order To Show How Much He Can Spare.

The Whole Power Of Cunning Is Privative; To Say Nothing, And To Do Nothing , Is The Utmost Of Its Reach. Yet Men, Thus Narrow By Nature And Mean By Art, Are Sometimes Able To Rise By The Miscarriages Of Bravery And The Openness Of Integrity, And, Watching Failures And Snatching Opportunities, Obtain Advantages Which Belong To Higher Characters.

Too Much Vigor In The Beginning Of An Undertaking Often Intercepts And Prevents The Steadiness And Perseverance Always Necessary In The Conduct Of A Complicated Scheme.

While An Author Is Yet Living, We Estimate His Powers By His Worst Performance; And When He Is Dead, We Rate Him By His Best.

Truth Has No Gradations; Nothing Which Admits Of Increase Can Be So Much What It Is, As Truth Is Truth. There May Be A Strange Thing, And A Thing More Strange. But If A Proposition Be True, There Can Be None More True.

Hope Itself Is A Species Of Happiness, And, Perhaps, The Chief Happiness Which This World Affords; But, Like All Other Pleasures Immoderately Enjoyed, The Excesses Of Hope Must Be Expiated By Pain.

Some People Wave Their Dogmatic Thinking Until Their Own Reason Is Entangled.

He That Resigns His Peace To Little Casualties, And Suffers The Course Of His Life To Be Interrupted For Fortuitous Inadvertencies Or Offences, Delivers Up Himself To The Direction Of The Wind, And Loses All That Constancy And Equanimity Which Constitutes The Chief Praise Of A Wise Man.

It Is Unpleasing To Represent Our Affairs To Our Own Disadvantage; Yet It Is Necessary To Shew The Evils Which We Desire To Be Removed.

A Transition From An Author's Book To His Conversation Is Too Often Like An Entrance Into A Large City, After A Distant Prospect. Remotely, We See Nothing But Spires Of Temples And Turrets Of Palaces, And Imagine It The Residence Of Splendour, Grandeur, And Magnificence; But When We Have Passed The Gates, We Find It Perplexed With Narrow Passages, Disgraced With Despicable Cottages, Embarrassed With Obstructions, And Clouded With Smoke.

To Let Friendship Die Away By Negligence And Silence Is Certainly Not Wise. It Is Voluntarily To Throw Away One Of The Greatest Comforts Of The Weary Pilgrimage.

Jesting, Often, Only Proves A Want Of Intellect.

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

Life Affords No Higher Pleasure Than That Of Surmounting Difficulties.

Ignorance Cannot Always Be Inferred From Inaccuracy; Knowledge Is Not Always Present.

In Lapidary Inscriptions A Man Is Not Upon Oath.

Words Too Familiar, Or Too Remote, Defeat The Purpose Of A Poet. From Those Sounds Which We Hear On Small Or On Coarse Occasions, We Do Not Easily Receive Strong Impressions, Or Delightful Images; And Words To Which We Are Nearly Strangers, Whenever They Occur, Draw That Attention On Themselves Which They Should Transmit To Other Things.

No Money Is Better Spent Than What Is Laid Out For Domestic Satisfaction.

A Man, Doubtful Of His Dinner, Or Trembling At A Creditor, Is Not Much Disposed To Abstracted Meditation, Or Remote Enquiries.

Composition Is For The Most Part An Effort Of Slow Diligence And Steady Perseverance, To Which The Mind Is Dragged By Necessity Or Resolution, And From Which The Attention Is Every Moment Starting To More Delightful Amusements.

To Make Dictionaries Is Dull Work.

Avarice Is A Uniform And Tractable Vice; Other Intellectual Distempers Are Different In Different Constitutions Of Mind. That Which Soothes The Pride Of One Will Offend The Pride Of Another, But To The Favor Of The Covetous Bring Money, And Nothing Is Denied.

As Long As One Lives He Will Have Need Of Repentance.

The Supreme End Of Education Is Expert Discernment In All Things-the Power To Tell The Good From The Bad, The Genuine From The Counterfeit, And To Prefer The Good And The Genuine To The Bad And The Counterfeit.

He That Is Pushing His Predecessors Into The Gulf Of Obscurity, Cannot But Sometimes Suspect, That He Must Himself Sink In Like Manner, And, As He Stands Upon The Same Precipice, Be Swept Away With The Same Violence.

Life Admits Not Of Delays; When Pleasure Can Be Had, It Is Fit To Catch It. Every Hour Takes Away Part Of The Things That Please Us, And Perhaps Part Of Our Disposition To Be Pleased.

Nothing Is More Hopeless Than A Scheme Of Merriment.

I Would Not Give Half A Guinea To Live Under One Form Of Government Rather Than Another. It Is Of No Moment To The Happiness Of An Individual.

There Is No Book So Poor That It Would Not Be A Prodigy If Wholly Made By A Single Man.

The Seeds Of Knowledge May Be Planted In Solitude, But Must Be Cultivated In Public.

The Mind Is Never Satisfied With The Objects Immediately Before It, But Is Always Breaking Away From The Present Moment, And Losing Itself In Schemes Of Future Felicity... The Natural Flights Of The Human Mind Are Not From Pleasure To Pleasure, But From Hope To Hope.

The Lust Of Gold Succeeds The Rage Of Conquest; The Lust Of Gold, Unfeeling And Remorseless! The Last Corruption Of Degenerate Man.

Leisure And Curiosity Might Soon Make Great Advances In Useful Knowledge, Were They Not Diverted By Minute Emulation And Laborious Trifles.

To Grieve For Evils Is Often Wrong; But It Is Much More Wrong To Grieve Without Them. All Sorrow That Lasts Longer Than Its Cause Is Morbid, And Should Be Shaken Off As An Attack Of Melancholy, As The Forerunner Of A Greater Evil Than Poverty Or Pain.

The Next Best Thing To Knowing Something Is Knowing Where To Find It.

Human Experience, Which Is Constantly Contradicting Theory, Is The Great Test Of Truth. A System, Built Upon The Discoveries Of A Great Many Minds, Is Always Of More Strength, Than What Is Produced By The Mere Workings Of Any One Mind, Which, Of Itself, Can Do Very Little. There Is Not So Poor A Book In The World That Would Not Be A Prodigious Effort Were It Wrought Out Entirely By A Single Mind, Without The Aid Of Prior Investigators.

I Should As Soon Think Of Contradicting A Bishop

Every Man Speaks And Writes With Intent To Be Understood; And It Can Seldom Happen But He That Understands Himself, Might Convey His Notions To Another, If, Content To Be Understood, He Did Not Seek To Be Admired; But When Once He Begins To Contrive How His Sentiments May Be Received, Not With Most Ease To His Reader, But With Most Advantage To Himself, He Then Transfers His Consideration From Words To Sounds, From Sentences To Periods, And, As He Grows More Elegant, Becomes Less Intelligible.

In Misery's Darkest Cavern Known, His Useful Care Was Ever Nigh Where Hopeless Anguish Pour'd His Groan, And Lonely Want Retir'd To Die.

Virtue Is Too Often Merely Local.

The Use Of Travelling Is To Regulate Imagination By Reality, And Instead Of Thinking How Things May Be, To See Them As They Are.

Nothing Is More Common Than To Find Men, Whose Works Are Now Totally Neglected, Mentioned With Praises By Their Contemporaries As The Oracles Of Their Age, And The Legislators Of Science.

Greece Appears To Be The Fountain Of Knowledge; Rome Of Elegance

Disease Generally Begins That Equality Which Death Completes.

Where There Is Emulation, There Will Be Vanity; Where There Is Vanity, There Will Be Folly.

Lawyers Know Life Practically. A Bookish Man Should Always Have Them To Converse With.

Those Who Are In The Power Of Evil Habits Must Conquer Them As They Can; And Conquered They Must Be, Or Neither Wisdom Nor Happiness Can Be Attained: But Those Who Are Not Yet Subject To Their Influence May, By Timely Caution, Preserve Their Freedom.

The King Who Makes War On His Enemies Tenderly Distresses His Subjects Most Cruelly.

As The Faculty Of Writing Has Chiefly Been A Masculine Endowment, The Reproach Of Making The World Miserable Has Always Been Thrown Upon The Women.

As He That Lives Longest Lives But A Little While, Every Man May Be Certain That He Has No Time To Waste. The Duties Of Life Are Commensurate To Its Duration; And Every Day Brings Its Task, Which, If Neglected, Is Doubled On The Morrow.

He That Shall Peruse The Political Pamphlets Of Any Past Reign Will Wonder Why They Were So Eagerly Read, Or So Loudly Praised.

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Georges Clemenceau

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