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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.

-Samuel Johnson

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No Cause More Frequently

Samuel Johnson

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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.

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Bashfulness May Sometimes Exclude Pleasure, But Seldom Opens Any Avenue To Sorrow Or Remorse.

A Small Country Town Is Not The Place In Which One Would Choose To Quarrel With A Wife; Every Human Being In Such Places Is A Spy.

In Most Ages Many Countries Have Had Part Of Their Inhabitants In A State Of Slavery; Yet It May Be Doubted Whether Slavery Can Ever Be Supposed The Natural Condition Of Man. It Is Impossible Not To Conceive That Men In Their Original State Were Equal; And Very Difficult To Imagine How One Would Be Subjected To Another But By Violent Compulsion. An Individual May, Indeed, Forfeit His Liberty By A Crime; But He Cannot By That Crime Forfeit The Liberty Of His Children.

No Man Can Have Much Kindness For Him By Whom He Does Not Believe Himself Esteemed, And Nothing So Evidently Proves Esteem As Imitation.

Timidity Is A Disease Of The Mind, Obstinate And Fatal; For A Man Once Persuaded That Any Impediment Is Insuperable Has Given It, With Respect To Himself, That Strength And Weight Which It Had Not Before.

Glory, The Casual Gift Of Thoughtless Crowds! Glory, The Bribe Of Avaricious Virtue!

There Is Not, Perhaps, To A Mind Well Instructed, A More Painful Occurrence, Than The Death Of One We Have Injured Without Reparation.

Human Condition

Men Who Cannot Deceive Others Are Very Often Successful At Deceiving Themselves.

It Is Better That Some Should Be Unhappy Rather Than That None Should Be Happy, Which Would Be The Case In A General State Of Equality.

The Majority Have No Other Reason For Their Opinions Than That They Are The Fashion.

Depend Upon It, Sir, It Is When You Come Close To A Man In Conservation That You Discover What His Real Abilities Are; To Make A Speech In A Public Assembly Is A Knack.

A Man May Be So Much Of Everything That He Is Nothing Of Anything.

Great Abilities Are Not Requisite For An Historian; For In Historical Composition, All The Greatest Powers Of The Human Mind Are Quiescent.

It Is Better To Suffer Wrong Than To Do It, And Happier To Be Sometimes Cheated Than Not To Trust.

A Man Guilty Of Poverty Easily Believes Himself Suspected.

It Is The Condition Of Our Present State To See More Than We Can Attain; The Exactest Vigilance And Caution Can Never Maintain A Single Day Of Unmingled Innocence.

Every Man Has Frequent Grievances Which Only The Solicitude Of Friendship Will Discover And Remedy, And Which Would Remain For Ever Unheeded In The Mighty Heap Of Human Calamity, Were It Only Surveyed By The Eye Of General Benevolence Equally Attentive To Every Misery.

Self-love Is Often Rather Arrogant Than Blind; It Does Not Hide Our Faults From Ourselves, But Persuades Us That They Escape The Notice Of Others.

Life Affords No Higher Pleasure Than That Of Surmounting Difficulties.

Admiration And Love Are Like Being Intoxicated With Champagne; Judgment And Friendship Are Like Being Enlivened.

No One Will Persist Long In Helping Someone Who Will Not Help Themselves.

Helping Someone

Sorrow Is A Kind Of Rust Of The Soul, Which Every New Idea Contributes In Its Passage To Scour Away. It Is The Putrefaction Of Stagnant Life, And Is Remedied By Exercise And Motion.

Among The Numerous Stratagems By Which Pride Endeavors To Recommend Folly To Regard, There Is Scarcely One That Meets With Less Success Than Affectation, Or A Perpetual Disguise Of The Real Character By Fictitious Appearances.

Celestial Wisdom Calms The Mind.

Criticism Is A Study By Which Men Grow Important And Formidable At Very Small Expense. He Whom Nature Has Made Weak, And Idleness Keeps Ignorant, May Yet Support His Vanity By The Name Of A Critic.

See Nations Slowly Wise, And Meanly Just, To Buried Merit Raise The Tardy Bust.

Riches Exclude Only One Inconvenience,--that Is, Poverty.

There Are Minds So Impatient Of Inferiority That Their Gratitude Is A Species Of Revenge, And They Return Benefits, Not Because Recompense Is A Pleasure, But Because Obligation Is A Pain.

Men Seldom Give Pleasure When They Are Not Pleased Themselves.

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

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

The Most Fatal Disease Of Friendship Is Gradual Decay, Or Dislike Hourly Increased By Causes Too Slender For Complaint, And Too Numerous For Removal.

Claret Is The Liquor For Boys; Port For Men; But He Who Aspires To Be A Hero Must Drink Brandy.

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.

Sleep Undisturbed Within This Peaceful Shrine, Till Angels Wake Thee With A Note Like Thine.

Order Is A Lovely Nymph, The Child Of Beauty And Wisdom; Her Attendants Are Comfort, Neatness, And Activity; Her Abode Is The Valley Of Happiness: She Is Always To Be Found When Sought For, And Never Appears So Lovely As When Contrasted With Her Opponent, Disorder.

It Is, Indeed, At Home That Every Man Must Be Known By Those Who Would Make A Just Estimate Either Of His Virtue Or Felicity; For Smiles And Embroidery Are Alike Occasional, And The Mind Is Often Dressed For Show In Painted Honor, And Fictitious Benevolence.

Music Is The Only Sensual Pleasure Without Vice.

I Would Rather Be Attacked Than Unnoticed. For The Worst Thing You Can Do To An Author Is To Be Silent As To His Works.

The Use Of Traveling Is To Regulate Imagination By Reality.

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

Few Men Survey Themselves With So Much Severity As Not To Admit Prejudices In Their Own Favor.

The Great Effect Of Friendship Is Beneficence, Yet By The First Act Of Uncommon Kindness It Is Endangered.

Lost Friendship

Exert Your Talents, And Distinguish Yourself, And Don't Think Of Retiring From The World, Until The World Will Be Sorry That You Retire.

Scarce Any Man Becomes Eminently Disagreeable But By A Departure From His Real Character, And An Attempt At Something For Which Nature Or Education Has Left Him Unqualified.

Inquiries Into The Heart Are Not For Man.

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 We See Our Enemies And Friends Gliding Away Before Us, Let Us Not Forget That We Are Subject To The General Law Of Mortality, And Shall Soon Be Where Our Doom Will Be Fixed Forever.

He Said That Few People Had Intellectual Resources Sufficient To Forgo The Pleasures Of Wine. They Could Not Otherwise Contrive How To Fill The Interval Between Dinner And Supper.

If One Was To Think Constantly Of Death, The Business Of Life Would Stand Still

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

Politics Are Now Nothing More Than Means Of Rising In The World. With This Sole View Do Men Engage In Politics, And Their Whole Conduct Proceeds Upon It.

Man Is A Transitory Being, And His Designs Must Partake Of The Imperfections Their Author.

To Those Who Have Lived Long Together, Everything Heard And Everything Seen Recalls Some Pleasure Communicated, Some Benefit Conferred, Some Petty Quarrel Or Some Slight Endearment. Esteem Of Great Powers, Or Amiable Qualities Newly Discovered May Embroider A Day Or A Week, But A Friendship Of Twenty Years Is Interwoven With The Texture Of Life.

A Writer Only Begins A Book. A Reader Finishes It.

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

Whatever Is Proposed, It Is Much Easier To Find Reasons For Rejecting Than Embracing.

Philosophers There Are Who Try To Make Themselves Believe That This Life Is Happy; But They Believe It Only While They Are Saying It, And Never Yet Produced Conviction In A Single Mind.

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

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

Pleasure Is Very Seldom Found Where It Is Sought; Our Brightest Blazes Of Gladness Are Commonly Kindled By Unexpected Sparks.

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.

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

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.

No Man Can Taste The Fruits Of Autumn While He Is Delighting His Scent With The Flowers Of Spring.

What Is Easy Is Seldom Excellent.

Curiosity Is The Thirst Of The Soul.

Advice Is Offensive, It Shows Us That We Are Known To Others As Well As To Ourselves.

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.

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.

All Wonder Is The Effect Of Novelty On Ignorance.

Quotation Is The Highest Compliment You Can Pay An Author.

Compliments You

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.

The Resolution Of The Combat Is Seldom Equal To The Vehemence Of The Charge.

If An Author Be Supposed To Involve His Thoughts In Voluntary Obscurity, And To Obstruct, By Unnecessary Difficulties, A Mind Eager In The Pursuit Of Truth; If He Writes Not To Make Others Learned, But To Boast The Learning Which He Possesses Himself, And Wishes To Be Admired Rather Than Understood, He Counteracts The First End Of Writing, And Justly Suffers The Utmost Severity Of Censure, Or The More Afflicting Severity Of Neglect.

Of Riches It Is Not Necessary To Write The Praise. Let It, However, Be Remembered That He Who Has Money To Spare Has It Always In His Power To Benefit Others, And Of Such Power A Good Man Must Always Be Desirous.

If We Estimate Dignity By Immediate Usefulness, Agriculture Is Undoubtedly The First And Noblest Science.

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

The Happiest Part Of A Man's Life Is What He Passes Lying Awake In Bed In The Morning.

An Exotic And Irrational Entertainment, Which Has Been Always Combated, And Always Has Prevailed.

When Any Calamity Is Suffered, The First Thing To Be Remembered Is, How Much Has Been Escaped.

The Mental Disease Of The Present Generation Is Impatience Of Study, Contempt Of The Great Masters Of Ancient Wisdom, And A Disposition To Rely Wholly Upon Unassisted Genius And Natural Sagacity.

Friendship, Like Love, Is Destroyed By Long Absence, Though It May Be Increased By Short Intermissions.

What I Gained By Being In France Was Learning To Be Better Satisfied With My Own Country.

All Envy Is Proportionate To Desire.

The Chief Art Of Learning, As Locke Has Observed, Is To Attempt But Little At A Time. The Widest Excursions Of The Mind Are Made By Short Flights Frequently Repeated; The Most Lofty Fabrics Of Science Are Formed By The Continued Accumulation Of Single Propositions.

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions.

Procrastination

It Is Wonderful To Think How Men Of Very Large Estates Not Only Spend Their Yearly Income, But Are Often Actually In Want Of Money. It Is Clear, They Have Not Value For What They Spend.

Every Man Is Rich Or Poor According To The Proportion Between His Desires And His Enjoyments; Any Enlargement Of Wishes Is Therefore Equally Destructive To Happiness With The Diminution Of Possession, And He That Teaches Another To Long For What He Never Shall Obtain Is No Less An Enemy To His Quiet Than If He Had Robbed Him Of Part Of His Patrimony

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.

Knowledge Always Desires Increase, It Is Like Fire, Which Must First Be Kindled By Some External Agent, But Which Will Afterwards Propagate Itself.

It Is One Of The Maxims Of The Civil Law, That Definitions Are Hazardous.

A Book Should Teach Us To Enjoy Life, Or To Endure It.

A Quibble Is To Shakespeare What Luminous Vapours Are To The Traveller: He Follows It At All Adventures; It Is Sure To Lead Him Out Of His Way And Sure To Engulf Him In The Mire.

I Have Adopted The Roman Sentiment, That It Is More Honorable To Save A Citizen Than To Kill An Enemy.

It Is Scarcely Credible To What Degree Discernment May Be Dazzled By The Mist Of Pride, And Wisdom Infatuated By The Intoxication Of Flattery.

Wine Makes A Man Better Pleased With Himself. I Do Not Say That It Makes Him More Pleasing To Others.

The Power, Indeed, Of Every Individual Is Small, And The Consequence Of His Endeavours Imperceptible, In A General Prospect Of The World. Providence Has Given No Man Ability To Do Much, That Something Might Be Left For Every Man To Do. The Business Of Life Is Carried On By A General Co-operation; In Which The Part Of Any Single Man Can Be No More Distinguished, Than The Effect Of A Particular Drop When The Meadows Are Floated By A Summer Shower: Yet Every Drop Increases The Inundation, And Every Hand Adds To The Happiness Or Misery Of Mankind.

Gloomy Calm Of Idle Vacancy.

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

Nothing Is Difficult, When Gain And Honour Unite Their Influence.

When A Man Is Tried Of London, He Is Tired Of Life.

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

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.

Every Other Enjoyment Malice May Destroy; Every Other Panegyric Envy May Withhold; But No Human Power Can Deprive The Boaster Of His Own Encomiums.

Treating Your Adversary With Respect Is Striking Soft In Battle.

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.

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.

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.

Though It Is Evident, That Not More Than One Age Or People Can Deserve The Censure Of Being More Averse From Learning Than Any Other, Yet At All Times Knowledge Must Have Encountered Impediments, And Wit Been Mortified With Contempt, Or Harassed With Persecution.

If In An Actor There Appears An Utter Vacancy Of Meaning, A Frigid Equality, A Stupid Languor, A Torpid Apathy, The Greatest Kindness That Can Be Shown Him Is A Speedy Sentence Of Expulsion.

Where Grief Is Fresh, Any Attempt To Divert It Only Irritates.

A Patriot Is He Whose Public Conduct Is Regulated By One Single Motive, The Love Of His Country; Who, As An Agent In Parliament, Has, For Himself, Neither Hope Nor Fear, Neither Kindness Nor Resentment, But Refers Every Thing To The Common Interest

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

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.

Men Go To Sea, Before They Know The Unhappiness Of That Way Of Life; And When They Have Come To Know It, They Cannot Escape From It, Because It Is Then Too Late To Choose Another Profession; As Indeed Is Generally The Case With Men, When They Have Once Engaged In Any Particular Way Of Life.

The True Effect Of Genuine Politeness Seems To Be Rather Ease Than Pleasure.

To Set The Mind Above The Appetites Is The End Of Abstinence, Which One Of The Fathers Observes To Be Not A Virtue, But The Groundwork Of Virtue.

Being Reproached For Giving To An Unworthy Person, Aristotle Said, I Did Not Give It To The Man, But To Humanity.

Poetry Cannot Be Translated; And, Therefore, It Is The Poets That Preserve The Languages; For We Would Not Be At The Trouble To Learn A Language If We Could Have All That Is Written In It Just As Well In A Translation. But As The Beauties Of Poetry Cannot Be Preserved In Any Language Except That In Which It Was Originally Written, We Learn The Language.

If Useless Thoughts Could Be Expelled From The Mind, All The Valuable Parts Of Our Knowledge Would More Frequently Recur.

Much Is Due To Those Who First Broke The Way To Knowledge, And Left Only To Their Successors The Task Of Smoothing It.

Every Man Prefers Virtue, When There Is Not Some Strong Incitement To Transgress Its Precepts.

If The Abuse Be Enormous, Nature Will Rise Up, And Claiming Her Original Rights, Overturn A Corrupt Political System.

Diligence In Employments Of Less Consequence Is The Most Successful Introduction To Greater Enterprises.

Praise, Like Gold And Diamonds, Owes Its Value Only To Its Scarcity. It Becomes Cheap As It Becomes Vulgar, And Will No Longer Raise Expectation Or Animate Enterprise.

Few Of Those Who Fill The World With Books, Have Any Pretensions To The Hope Either Of Pleasing Or Instructing. They Have Often No Other Task Than To Lay Two Books Before Them, Out Of Which They Compile A Third, Without Any New Material Of Their Own, And With Very Little Application Of Judgment To Those Which Former Authors Have Supplied.

Games Are Good Or Bad As To Their Nature; All May Be Perverted.

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 Dreadful Than Its Extinction.

I Remember A Passage In Goldsmith's "vicar Of Wakefield," Which He Was Afterwards Fool Enough To Expunge: "i Do Not Love A Man Who Is Zealous For Nothing.

Fear Is Implanted In Us As A Preservative From Evil.

In A Man's Letters You Know, Madam, His Soul Lies Naked, His Letters Are Only The Mirrour Of His Breast.

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.

Marriage Is The Strictest Tie Of Perpetual Friendship, And There Can Be No Friendship Without Confidence, And No Confidence Without Integrity; And He Must Expect To Be Wretched, Who Pays To Beauty, Riches, Or Politeness That Regard Which Only Virtue And Piety Can Claim.

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, Every One Is Eager To Instruct His Neighbors.

To Have The Management Of The Mind Is A Great Art, And It May Be Attained In A Considerable Degree By Experience And Habitual Exercise.

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.

The Gratification Which Affluence Of Wealth, Extent Of Power, And Eminence Of Reputation Confer, Must Be Always, By Their Own Nature, Confined To A Very Small Number; And The Life Of The Greater Part Of Mankind Must Be Lost In Empty Wishes And Painful Comparisons, Were Not The Balm Of Philosophy Shed Upon Us, And Our Discontent At The Appearances Of Unequal Distribution Soothed And Appeased.

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.

By Those Who Look Close To The Ground Dirt Will Be Seen. I Hope I See Things From A Greater Distance.

Love Is Only One Of Many Passions.

Authors And Lovers Always Suffer Some Infatuation, From Which Only Absence Can Set Them Free.

Advice Is Seldom Welcome. Those Who Need It Most, Like It Least.

My Diseases Are An Asthma And A Dropsy And, What Is Less Curable, Seventy-five.

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.

Critics Ought Never To Be Consulted, But While Errors May Yet Be Rectified Or Insipidity Suppressed. But When The Book Has Once Been Dismissed Into The World, And Can Be No More Retouched, I Know Not Whether A Very Different Conduct Should Not Be Prescribed, And Whether Firmness And Spirit May Not Sometimes Be Of Use To Overpower Arrogance And Repel Brutality.

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?

The Maxim Of Cleobulus, "mediocrity Is Best," Has Been Long Considered A Universal Principle, Extending Through The Whole Compass Of Life And Nature. The Experience Of Every Age Seems To Have Given It New Confirmation, And To Show That Nothing, However Specious Or Alluring, Is Pursued With Propriety Or Enjoyed With Safety Beyond Certain Limits.

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.

The Coquette Has Companions, Indeed, But No Lovers,--for Love Is Respectful And Timorous; And Where Among Her Followers Will She Find A Husband?

What Is The Reason That Women Servants ... Have Much Lower Wages Than Men Servants ... When In Fact Our Female House Servants Work Much Harder Than The Male?

Where There Is No Difficulty There Is No Praise.

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 Wickedness Of A Loose Or Profane Author Is More Atrocious Than That Of A Giddy Libertine Or Drunken Ravisher, Not Only Because It Extends Its Effects Wider, As A Pestilence That Taints The Air Is More Destructive Than Poison Infused In A Draught, But Because It Is Committed With Cool Deliberation.

As Every One Is Pleased With Imagining That He Knows Something Not Yet Commonly Divulged, Secret History Easily Gains Credit; But It Is For The Most Part Believed Only While It Circulates In Whispers, And When Once It Is Openly Told, Is Openly Refuted.

John Wesley's Conversation Is Good, But He Is Never At Leisure. He Is Always Obliged To Go At A Certain Hour. This Is Very Disagreeable To A Man Who Loves To Fold His Legs And Have His Talk Out As I Do.

He Endearing Elegance Of Female Friendship.

To Mean Understandings, It Is Sufficient Honour To Be Numbered Amongst The Lowest Labourers Of Learning; But Different Abilities Must Find Different Tasks. To Hew Stone, Would Have Been Unworthy Of Palladio; And To Have Rambled In Search Of Shells And Flowers, Had But Ill Suited With The Capacity Of Newton.

They Make A Rout About Universal Liberty, Without Considering That All That Is To Be Valued, Or Indeed Can Be Enjoyed By Individuals, Is Private Liberty.

You Cannot Spend Money In Luxury Without Doing Good To The Poor. Nay, You Do More Good To Them By Spending It In Luxury, Than By Giving It; For By Spending It In Luxury, You Make Them Exert Industry, Whereas By Giving It, You Keep Them Idle.

Every Old Man Complains Of The Growing Depravity Of The World, Of The Petulance And Insolence Of The Rising Generation.

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

You Despise A Man For Avarice; But You Do Not Hate Him.

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

Keeping Secrets

A Person Loves To Review His Own Mind. That Is The Use Of A Diary, Or Journal.

Cucumber Should Be Well Sliced, Dressed With Pepper And Vinegar, And Then Thrown Out.

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.

I Know Not Any Crime So Great That A Man Could Contrive To Commit As Poisoning The Sources Of Eternal Truth.

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.

To Embarrass Justice By Multiplicity Of Laws, Or To Hazard It By Confidence In Judges, Seem To Be The Opposite Rocks On Which All Civil Institutions Have Been Wrecked, And Between Which Legislative Wisdom Has Never Yet Found An Open Passage.

Guilt Has Always Its Horrors And Solicitudes; And, To Make It Yet More Shameful And Detestable, It Is Doomed Often To Stand In Awe Of Those To Whom Nothing Could Give Influence Or Weight But Their Power Of Betraying.

Abstinence Is As Easy To Me As Temperance Would Be Difficult.

Fears Of The Brave And Follies Of The Wise.

A Poet, Naturalist, And Historian, Who Left Scarcely Any Style Of Writing Untouched, And Touched Nothing That He Did Not Adorn.

By Writing, You Learn To Write.

If A Madman Were To Come Into This Room With A Stick In His Hand, No Doubt We Should Pity The State Of His Mind; But Our Primary Consideration Would Be To Take Care Of Ourselves. We Should Knock Him Down First, And Pity Him Afterwards.

No Government Power Can Be Abused Long. Mankind Will Not Bear It.

He That Never Labors May Know The Pains Of Idleness, But Not The Pleasures.

But Though It Cannot Be Reasonable Not To Gain Happiness For Fear Of Losing It, Yet It Must Be Confessed, That In Proportion To The Pleasure Of Possession, Will Be For Some Time Our Sorrow For The Loss.

You May Translate Books Of Science Exactly. ... The Beauties Of Poetry Cannot Be Preserved In Any Language Except That In Which It Was Originally Written.

Of Those That Spin Out Trifles And Die Without A Memorial, Many Flatter Themselves With High Opinions Of Their Own Importance, And Imagine That They Are Every Day Adding Some Improvement To Human Life.

Words Are But The Signs Of Ideas.

Life Is Barren Enough Surely With All Her Trappings; Let Us Be Therefore Cautious Of How We Strip Her.

When Emulation Leads Us To Strive For Self-elevation By Merit Alone, And Not By Belittling Another, Then It Is One Of The Grandest Possible Incentives To Action.

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.

There Are Indeed, In The Present Corruption Of Mankind, Many Incitements To Forsake Truth: The Need Of Palliating Our Own Faults And The Convenience Of Imposing On The Ignorance Or Credulity Of Others So Frequently Occur; So Many Immediate Evils Are

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

Every Man Is Prompted By The Love Of Himself To Imagine That He Possesses Some Qualities Superior, Either In Kind Or Degree, To Those Which He Sees Allotted To The Rest Of The World.

He Was So Generally Civil, That Nobody Thanked Him For It.

Happiness Consists In The Multiplicity Of Agreeable Consciousness.

He That Travels In Theory Has No Inconveniences.

He Who Endeavors To Please Must Appear Pleased.

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.

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.

I Am A Friend To Subordination, As Most Conducive To The Happiness Of Society. There Is A Reciprocal Pleasure In Governing And Being Governed.

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

Everything That Enlarges The Sphere Of Human Powers, That Shows Man He Can Do What He Thought He Could Not Do, Is Valuable.

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.

General Irregularities Are Known In Time To Remedy Themselves. By The Constitution Of Ancient Egypt, The Priesthood Was Continually Increasing, Till At Length There Was No People Beside Themselves; The Establishment Was Then Dissolved, And The Number Of Priests Was Reduced And Limited. Thus Among Us, Writers Will, Perhaps, Be Multiplied, Till No Readers Will Be Found, And Then The Ambition Of Writing Must Necessarily Cease.

The Love Of Retirement Has In All Ages Adhered Closely To Those Minds Which Have Been Most Enlarged By Knowledge, Or Elevated By Genius. Those Who Enjoyed Everything Generally Supposed To Confer Happiness Have Been Forced To Seek It In The Shades Of Privacy.

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Henryk Sienkiewicz

Agnieszka Radwanska

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