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Most Of The Methods For Measuring The Lapse Of Time Have, I Believe, Been The Contrivance Of Monks And Religious Recluses, Who, Finding Time Hang Heavy On Their Hands, Were At Some Pains To See How They Got Rid Of It.

-William Hazlitt

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Most Of The Methods

William Hazlitt

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Most Of The Methods For Measuring The Lapse Of Time Have, I Believe, Been The Contrivance Of Monks And Religious Recluses, Who, Finding Time Hang Heavy On Their Hands, Were At Some Pains To See How They Got Rid Of It.

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

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

Man Is The Only Animal That Laughs And Weeps; For He Is The Only Animal That Is Struck With The Difference Between What Things Are, And What They Ought To Be.

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

To Think Justly, We Must Understand What Others Mean. To Know The Value Of Our Thoughts, We Must Try Their Effect On Other Minds.

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

We Do Not See Nature With Our Eyes, But With Our Understandings And Our Hearts.

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

The Public Have Neither Shame Or Gratitude.

We Are Not Satisfied To Be Right, Unless We Can Prove Others To Be Quite Wrong.

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

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

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

Life Is The Art Of Being Well Deceived.

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

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

The Same Reason Makes A Man A Religious Enthusiast That Makes A Man An Enthusiast In Any Other Way ... An Uncomfortable Mind In An Uncomfortable Body.

No Really Great Man Ever Thought Himself So.

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.

Charity, Like Nature, Abhors A Vacuum. Next To Putting It In A Bank, Men Like To Squander Their Superfluous Wealth On Those To Whom It Is Sure To Be Doing The Least Possible Good.

Those Who Object To Wit Are Envious Of It.

In Art, In Taste, In Life, In Speech, You Decide From Feeling, And Not From Reason. If We Were Obliged To Enter Into A Theoretical Deliberation On Every Occasion Before We Act, Life Would Be At A Stand, And Art Would Be Impracticable.

Diffidence And Awkwardness Are Antidotes To Love.

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

Time,--the Most Independent Of All Things.

I Like A Person Who Knows His Own Mind And Sticks To It; Who Sees At Once What Is To Be Done In Given Circumstances And Does It. He Does Not Beat About The Bush For Difficulties Or Excuses, But Goes The Shortest And Most Effectual Way To Work To Attain His Own Ends, Or To Accomplish A Useful Object.

The Confined Air Of A Metropolis Is Hurtful To The Minds And Bodies Of Those Who Have Never Lived Out Of It. It Is Impure, Stagnant--without Breathing-space To Allow A Larger View Of Ourselves Or Others--and Gives Birth To A Puny, Sickly, Unwholesome, And Degenerate Race Of Beings.

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

The Slaves Of Power Mind The Cause They Have To Serve, Because Their Own Interest Is Concerned; But The Friends Of Liberty Always Sacrifice Their Cause, Which Is Only The Cause Of Humanity, To Their Own Spleen, Vanity, And Self-opinion.

The Best Kind Of Conversation Is That Which May Be Called Thinking Aloud.

Danger Is A Good Teacher, And Makes Apt Scholars. So Are Disgrace, Defeat, Exposure To Immediate Scorn And Laughter. There Is No Opportunity In Such Cases For Self-delusion, No Idling Time Away, No Being Off Your Guard (or You Must Take The Consequences) - Neither Is There Any Room For Humour Or Caprice Or Prejudice.

What Are The Publications That Succeed? Those That Pretend To Teach The Public That The Persons They Have Been Accustomed Unwittingly To Look Up To As The Lights Of The Earth Are No Better Than Themselves.

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.

First Impressions Are Often The Truest, As We Find (not Unfrequently) To Our Cost When We Have Been Wheedled Out Of Them By Plausible Professions Or Actions. A Man's Look Is The Work Of Years, It Is Stamped On His Countenance By The Events Of His Whole Life, Nay, More, By The Hand Of Nature, And It Is Not To Be Got Rid Of Easily.

If You Think You Can Win, You Can Win. Faith Is Necessary To Victory.

The Art Of Conversation Is The Art Of Hearing As Well As Of Being Heard.

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.

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

He Who Lives Wisely To Himself And His Own Heart Looks At The Busy World Through The Loopholes Of Retreat, And Does Not Want To Mingle In The Fray.

Well I've Had A Happy Life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Soul Of Dispatch Is Decision.

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

When We Hear Complaints Of The Wretchedness Or Vanity Of Human Life, The Proper Answer To Them Would Be That There Is Hardly Any One Who At Some Point Or Other Has Not Been In Love. If We Consider The High Abstraction Of This Feeling, Its Depth, Its Purity, Its Voluptuous Refinement, Even In The Meanest Breast, How Sacred And How Sweet It Is, This Alone May Reconcile Us To The Lot Of Humanity. That Drop Of Balm Turns The Bitter Cup To A Delicious Nectar.

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

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

The Origin Of All Science Is The Desire To Know Causes, And The Origin Of All False Science Is The Desire To Accept False Causes Rather Than None; Or, Which Is The Same Thing, In The Unwillingness To Acknowledge Our Own Ignorance.

Poverty, When It Is Voluntary, Is Never Despicable, But Takes An Heroical Aspect.

To Expect An Author To Talk As He Writes Is Ridiculous; Or Even If He Did You Would Find Fault With Him As A Pedant.

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

Violence Ever Defeats Its Own Ends. Where You Cannot Drive You Can Always Persuade. A Gentle Word, A Kind Look, A God-natured Smile Can Work Wonders And Accomplish Miracles. There Is A Secret Pride In Every Human Heart Than Revolts At Tyranny. You May Order And Drive An Individual, But You Cannot Make Him Respect You.

The Thing Is Plain. All That Men Really Understand, Is Confined To A Very Small Compass; To Their Daily Affairs And Experience; To What They Have An Opportunity To Know, And Motives To Study Or Practice. The Rest Is Affectation And Imposture.

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

Whatever Interests Is Interesting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Death Is The Greatest Evil, Because It Cuts Off Hope.

That Humanity And Sincerity Which Dispose Men To Resist Injustice And Tyranny Render Them Unfit To Cope With The Cunning And Power Of Those Who Are Opposed To Them. The Friends Of Liberty Trust To The Professions Of Others Because They Are Themselves Sincere, And Endeavour To Secure The Public Good With The Least Possible Hurt To Its Enemies, Who Have No Regard To Anything But Their Own Unprincipled Ends, And Stick At Nothing To Accomplish Them.

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

He Who Expects From A Great Name In Politics, In Philosophy, In Art, Equal Greatness In Other Things, Is Little Versed In Human Nature. Our Strength Lies In Our Weakness. The Learned In Books Are Ignorant Of The World. He Who Is Ignorant Of Books Is Often Well Acquainted With Other Things; For Life Is Of The Same Length In The Learned And Unlearned; The Mind Cannot Be Idle; If It Is Not Taken Up With One Thing, It Attends To Another Through Choice Or Necessity; And The Degree Of Previous Capacity In One Class Or Another Is A Mere Lottery.

Keep Your Misfortunes To Yourself.

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

Grace In Women Has More Effect Than Beauty.

Learning Is Its Own Exceeding Great Reward; And At The Period Of Which We Speak, It Bore Other Fruits, Not Unworthy Of It.

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

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

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

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

Taste Is Nothing But An Enlarged Capacity For Receiving Pleasure From Works Of Imagination.

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.

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

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

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

It Is Not Fit That Every Man Should Travel; It Makes A Wise Man Better, And A Fool Worse.

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.

The Amiable Is The Voluptuous In Expression Or Manner. The Sense Of Pleasure In Ourselves Is That Which Excites It In Others; Or, The Art Of Pleasing Is To Seem Pleased.

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 Pleasure Of Hating, Like A Poisonous Mineral, Eats Into The Heart Of Religion, And Turns It To Ranking Spleen And Bigotry; It Makes Patriotism An Excuse For Carrying Fire, Pestilence, And Famine Into Other Lands: It Leaves To Virtue Nothing But The Spirit Of Censoriousness.

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

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

A Mighty Stream Of Tendency.

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

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

Prosperity Is A Great Teacher; Adversity Is A Greater. Possession Pampers The Mind; Privation Trains And Strengthens It.

True Friendship Is Self-love At Second-hand.

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

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.

When We Forget Old Friends, It Is A Sign We Have Forgotten Ourselves.

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

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

By Retaliating Our Sufferings On The Heads Of Those We Love, We Get Rid Of A Present Uneasiness And Incur Lasting Remorse. With The Accomplishment Of Our Revenge Our Fondness Returns; So That We Feel The Injury We Have Done Them, Even More Than They Do.

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

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

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

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

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

Our Opinions Are Not Our Own, But In The Power Of Sympathy. If A Person Tells Us A Palpable Falsehood, We Not Only Dare Not Contradict Him, But We Dare Hardly Disbelieve Him To His Face. A Lie Boldly Uttered Has The Effect Of Truth For The Instant.

Vice, Like Disease, Floats In The Atmosphere.

Principle Is A Passion For Truth.

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.

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

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

The Way To Get On In The World Is To Be Neither More Nor Less Wise, Neither Better Nor Worse Than Your Neighbours.

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

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

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

It [will-making] Is The Latest Opportunity We Have Of Exercising The Natural Perversity Of The Disposition. This Last Act Of Our Lives Seldom Belies The Former Tenor Of Them For Stupidity, Caprice, And Unmeaning Spite. All That We Seem To Think Of Is To Manage Matters So (in Settling Accounts With Those Who Are So Unmannerly As To Survive Us) As To Do As Little Good, And To Plague And Disappoint As Many People, As Possible.

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.

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.

He Who Comes Up To His Own Idea Of Greatness Must Always Have Had A Very Low Standard Of It In His Mind.

Knowledge Is Pleasure As Well As Power.

The Most Violent Friendships Soonest Wear Themselves Out.

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

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.

When A Thing Ceases To Be A Subject Of Controversy, It Ceases To Be A Subject Of Interest.

Truth From The Mouth Of An Honest Man And Severity From A Good-natured Man Have A Double Effect.

There Are Many Who Talk On From Ignorance Rather Than From Knowledge, And Who Find The Former An Inexhaustible Fund Of Conversation.

As A General Rule, Those Who Are Dissatisfied With Themselves Will Seek To Go Out Of Themselves Into An Ideal World. Persons In Strong Health And Spirits, Who Take Plenty Of Air And Exercise, Who Are "in Favor With, Their Stars," And Have A Thorough Relish Of The Good Things Of This Life, Seldom Devote Themselves In Despair To Religion Or The Muses. Sedentary, Nervous, Hypochondriacal People, On The Contrary, Are Forced, For Want Of An Appetite For The Real And Substantial, To Look Out For A More Airy Food And Speculative Comforts.

The Truth Is, We Pamper Little Griefs Into Great Ones, And Bear Great Ones As Well As We Can.

Grace Has Been Defined As The Outward Expression Of The Inward Harmony Of The Soul.

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

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

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.

We Are Cold To Others Only When We Are Dull In Ourselves.

People Are Not Soured By Misfortune, But By The Reception They Meet With In It.

A Taste For Liberal Art Is Necessary To Complete The Character Of A Gentleman, Science Alone Is Hard And Mechanical. It Exercises The Understanding Upon Things Out Of Ourselves, While It Leaves The Affections Unemployed, Or Engrossed With Our Own Immediate, Narrow Interests.

To Be Capable Of Steady Friendship Or Lasting Love, Are The Two Greatest Proofs, Not Only Of Goodness Of Heart, But Of Strength Of Mind.

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

It Is A False Principle That Because We Are Entirely Occupied With Ourselves, We Must Equally Occupy The Thoughts Of Others. The Contrary Inference Is The Fair One.

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

The Most Learned Are Often The Most Narrow Minded.

Open Mindedness

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.

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

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.

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

Hoping For The Best

The Love Of Fame Is Almost Another Name For The Love Of Excellence; Or It Is The Ambition To Attain The Highest Excellence, Sanctioned By The Highest Authority, That Of Time.

We Can Bear To Be Deprived Of Everything But Our Self-conceit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rules And Models Destroy Genius And Art.

Poetry Is All That Is Worth Remembering In Life.

No Truly Great Person Ever Thought Themselves So.

The World Judge Of Men By Their Ability In Their Profession, And We Judge Of Ourselves By The Same Test: For It Is On That On Which Our Success In Life Depends.

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

One Of The Pleasantest Things In The World Is Going On A Journey; I Can Enjoy Society In A Room; But Out Of Doors, Nature Is Company Enough For Me. I Am Then Never Less Alone Than When Alone.

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.

Comedy Naturally Wears Itself Out - Destroys The Very Food On Which It Lives; And By Constantly And Successfully Exposing The Follies And Weaknesses Of Mankind To Ridicule, In The End Leaves Itself Nothing Worth Laughing At.

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

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.

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

Repose Is As Necessary In Conversation As In A Picture.

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

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

Fashion Is The Abortive Issue Of Vain Ostentation And Exclusive Egotism ... Tied To No Rule, And Bound To Conform To Every Whim Of The Minute.

What Is Popular Is Not Necessarily Vulgar; And That Which We Try To Rescue From Fatal Obscurity Had In General Much Better Remain Where It Is.

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

There Is A Softness And A Harmony In The Words And In The Thought Unparalleled. Of All Conceits It Is Surely The Most Classical. "i Count Only The Hours That Are Serene.".

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.

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

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.

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

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

Anyone Is To Be Pitied Who Has Just Sense Enough To Perceive His Deficiencies.

A Great Man La An Abstraction Of Some One Excellence; But Whoever Fancies Himself An Abstraction Of Excellence, So Far From Being Great, May Be Sure That He Is A Blockhead, Equally Ignorant Of Excellence Or Defect Of Himself Or Others.

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

We Uniformly Applaud What Is Right And Condemn What Is Wrong, When It Costs Us Nothing But The Sentiment.

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

People Do Not Persist In Their Vices Because They Are Not Weary Of Them, But Because They Cannot Leave Them Off. It Is The Nature Of Vice To Leave Us No Resource But In Itself.

Indolence Is A Delightful But Distressing State; We Must Be Doing Something To Be Happy. Action Is No Less Necessary Than Thought To The Instinctive Tendencies Of The Human Frame.

Humour Is The Making Others Act Or Talk Absurdly And Unconsciously; Wit Is The Pointing Out And Ridiculing That Absurdity Consciously, And With More Or Less Ill-nature.

There Is Evil Poured Upon The Earth From The Overflowings Of Corruption-- Sickness, And Poverty, And Pain, And Guilt, And Madness, And Sorrow; But, As The Water From A Fountain Riseth And Sinketh To Its Level, Ceaselessly Toileth Justice To Equalize The Lots Of Men.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Words Are The Only Things That Last For Ever.

The Youth Is Better Than The Old Age Of Friendship.

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.

He Who Draws Upon His Own Resources Easily Comes To An End Of His Wealth.

Of All Virtues, Magnanimity Is The Rarest. There Are A Hundred Persons Of Merit For One Who Willingly Acknowledges It In Another.

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.

If The World Were Good For Nothing Else, It Is A Fine Subject For Speculation.

Man Is A Poetical Animal, And Delights In Fiction.

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

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Penelope Lively

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