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They Are, As It Were, Train-bearers In The Pageant Of Life, And Hold A Glass Up To Humanity, Frailer Than Itself. We See Ourselves At Second-hand In Them: They Show Us All That We Are, All That We Wish To Be, And All That We Dread To Be. What Brings The Resemblance Nearer Is, That, As They Imitate Us, We, In Our Turn, Imitate Them. There Is No Class Of Society Whom So Many Persons Regard With Affection As Actors.

-William Hazlitt

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They Are, As It

William Hazlitt

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They Are, As It Were, Train-bearers In The Pageant Of Life, And Hold A Glass Up To Humanity, Frailer Than Itself. We See Ourselves At Second-hand In Them: They Show Us All That We Are, All That We Wish To Be, And All That We Dread To Be. What Brings The Resemblance Nearer Is, That, As They Imitate Us, We, In Our Turn, Imitate Them. There Is No Class Of Society Whom So Many Persons Regard With Affection As Actors.

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The Definition Of Genius Is That It Acts Unconsciously, And Those Who Have Produced Immortal Works Have Done So Without Knowing How Or Why.

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

The Admiration Of Power In Others Is As Common To Man As The Love Of It In Himself; The One Makes Him A Tyrant, The Other A Slave.

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

Persons Of Slender Intellectual Stamina Dread Competition, As Dwarfs Are Afraid Of Being Run Over In The Street.

Well I've Had A Happy Life.

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.

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

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

Our Repugnance To Death Increases In Proportion To Our Consciousness Of Having Lived In Vain.

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.

Zeal Will Do More Than Knowledge.

Political Truth Is Libel; Religious Truth, Blasphemy.

It Is Better To Drink Of Deep Grief Than To Taste Shallow Pleasures.

The Worst Old Age Is That Of The Mind.

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

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

Mankind Are An Incorrigible Race. Give Them But Bugbears And Idols -- It Is All That They Ask; The Distinctions Of Right And Wrong, Of Truth And Falsehood, Of Good And Evil, Are Worse Than Indifferent To Them.

We Trifle With, Make Sport Of, And Despise Those Who Are Attached To Us, And Follow Those That Fly From Us.

Poverty Is The Test Of Civility And The Touchstone Of Friendship.

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

Poetry Is All That Is Worth Remembering In Life.

Hope Is The Best Possession.

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.

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

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

Fame Is The Inheritance Not Of The Dead, But Of The Living. It Is We Who Look Back With Lofty Pride To The Great Names Of Antiquity.

Look Up, Laugh Loud, Talk Big, Keep The Color In Your Cheek And The Fire In Your Eye, Adorn Your Person, Maintain Your Health, Your Beauty And Your Animal Spirits.

The Soil Of Friendship Is Worn Out With Constant Use. Habit May Still Attach Us To Each Other, But We Feel Ourselves Fettered By It. Old Friends Might Be Compared To Old Married People Without The Tie Of Children.

We Do Not Like Our Friends The Worse Because They Sometimes Give Us An Opportunity To Rail At Them Heartily. Their Faults Reconcile Us To Their Virtues.

You Will Hear More Good Things On The Outside Of A Stagecoach From London To Oxford Than If You Were To Pass A Twelvemonth With The Undergraduates, Or Heads Of Colleges, Of That Famous University.

We Prefer A Person With Vivacity And High Spirits, Though Bordering Upon Insolence, To The Timid And Pusillanimous; We Are Fonder Of Wit Joined To Malice Than Of Dullness Without It.

Do Not Quarrel With The World Too Soon; For, Bad As It May Be, It Is The Best We Have To Live In, Here. If Railing Would Have Made It Better, It Would Have Been Reformed Long Ago.

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.

Mankind Are So Ready To Bestow Their Admiration On The Dead, Because The Latter Do Not Hear It, Or Because It Gives No Pleasure To The Objects Of It. Even Fame Is The Offspring Of Envy.

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.".

If A Person Has No Delicacy, He Has You In His Power.

A Proud Man Is Satisfied With His Own Good Opinion, And Does Not Seek To Make Converts To It.

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.

People Addicted To Secrecy Are So Without Knowing Why; They Are Not So For Cause, But For Secrecy's Sake.

Those Who Speak Ill Of The Spiritual Life, Although They Come And Go By Day, Are Like The Smith's Bellows: They Take Breath But Are Not Alive.

The Way To Procure Insults Is To Submit To Them. A Man Meets With No More Respect Than He Exacts.

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

Grace In Women Has More Effect Than Beauty.

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

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

Genius Is Native To The Soil Where It Grows — Is Fed By The Air, And Warmed By The Sun — And Is Not A Hot - House Plant Or An Exotic.

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

Nothing Precludes Sympathy So Much As A Perfect Indifference To It

There Is No Flattery So Adroit Or Effectual As That Of Implicit Assent.

Life Is A Continued Struggle To Be What We Are Not, And To Do What We Cannot.

Any One May Mouth Out A Passage With A Theatrical Cadence, Or Get Upon Stilts To Tell His Thoughts; But To Write Or Speak With Propriety And Simplicity Is A More Difficult Task. Thus It Is Easy To Affect A Pompous Style, To Use A Word Twice As Big As The Thing You Want To Express; It Is Not So Easy To Pitch Upon The Very Word That Exactly Fits It.

Those Only Deserve A Monument Who Do Not Need One.

Fashion Is Gentility Running Away From Vulgarity And Afraid Of Being Overtaken

The Truly Proud Man Knows Neither Superiors Or Inferiors. The First He Does Not Admit Of - The Last He Does Not Concern Himself About.

The Title Of Ultracrepidarian Critics Has Been Given To Those Persons Who Find Fault With Small And Insignificant Details.

The Essence Of Poetry Is Will And Passion.

Without The Aid Of Prejudice And Custom, I Should Not Be Able To Find My Way Across The Room.

Good Temper Is One Of The Great Preservers Of The Features.

Wrong Dressed Out In Pride, Pomp, And Circumstance Has More Attraction Than Abstract Right.

A Hypocrite Despises Those Whom He Deceives, But Has No Respect For Himself. He Would Make A Dupe Of Himself Too, If He Could.

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.

There Are Some Persons Who Never Succeed From Being Too Indolent To Undertake Anything; And Others Who Regularly Fail, Because The Instant They Find Success In Their Power, They Grow Indifferent, And Give Over The Attempt.

He Who Undervalues Himself Is Justly Undervalued By Others.

Vice, Like Disease, Floats In The Atmosphere.

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

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.

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

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.

A Nickname Is The Hardest Stone That The Devil Can Throw At A Man.

Language, If It Throws A Veil Over Our Ideas, Adds A Softness And Refinement To Them, Like That Which The Atmosphere Gives To Naked Objects.

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

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.

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

We Go On A Journey To Be Free Of All Impediments; To Leave Ourselves Behind Much More Than To Get Rid Of Others

We Never Do Anything Well Till We Cease To Think About The Manner Of Doing It.

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.

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

A Felon Could Plead "benefit Of Clergy" And Be Saved By [reading Aloud] What Was Aptly Enough Termed The "neck Verse", Which Was Very Usually The Miserere Mei Of Psalm 51.

One Said He Wondered That Leather Was Not Dearer Than Any Other Thing. Being Demanded A Reason: Because, Saith He, It Is More Stood Upon Than Any Other Thing In The World.

The Objects That We Have Known In Better Days Are The Main Props That Sustain The Weight Of Our Affections, And Give Us Strength To Await Our Future Lot.

Society Is A More Level Surface Than We Imagine. Wise Men Or Absolute Fools Are Hard To Be Met With, As There Are Few Giants Or Dwarfs. The Heaviest Charge We Can Bring Against The General Texture Of Society Is That It Is Commonplace. Our Fancied Superiority To Others Is In Some One Thing Which We Think Most Of Because We Excel In It, Or Have Paid Most Attention To It; Whilst We Overlook Their Superiority To Us In Something Else Which They Set Equal And Exclusive Store By.

As We Advance In Life, We Acquire A Keener Sense Of The Value Of Time. Nothing Else, Indeed, Seems Of Any Consequence; And We Become Misers In This Respect.

Common Sense, To Most People, Is Nothing More Than Their Own Opinions.

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

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

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

A Gentle Word, A Kind Look, A Good-natured Smile Can Work Wonders And Accomplish Miracles.

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

We Are Fonder Of Visiting Our Friends In Health Than In Sickness. We Judge Less Favorably Of Their Characters When Any Misfortune Happens To Them; And A Lucky Hit, Either In Business Or Reputation, Improves Even Their Personal Appearance In Our Eyes.

Envy Is A Littleness Of Soul, Which Cannot See Beyond A Certain Point, And If It Does Not Occupy The Whole Space Feels Itself Excluded.

Those Who Are Fond Of Setting Things To Rights, Have No Great Objection To Seeing Them Wrong.

A Full-dressed Ecclesiastic Is A Sort Of Go-cart Of Divinity; An Ethical Automaton. A Clerical Prig Is, In General, A Very Dangerous As Well As Contemptible Character. The Utmost That Those Who Thus Habitually Confound Their Opinions And Sentiments With The Outside Coverings Of Their Bodies Can Aspire To, Is A Negative And Neutral Character, Like Wax-work Figures, Where The Dress Is Done As Much To The Life As The Man, And Where Both Are Respectable Pieces Of Pasteboard, Or Harmless Compositions Of Fleecy Hosiery.

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

The Love Of Fame Is Too High And Delicate A Feeling In The Mind To Be Mixed Up With Realities, It Is A Solitary Abstraction. * * * A Name "fast Anchored In The Deep Abyss Of Time" Is Like A Star Twinkling In The Firmament, Cold, Silent, Distant, But Eternal And Sublime; And Our Transmitting One To Posterity Is As If We Should Contemplate Our Translation To The Skies.

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

To Get Others To Come Into Our Ways Of Thinking, We Must Go Over To Theirs; And It Is Necessary To Follow, In Order To Lead.

Those People Who Are Uncomfortable In Themselves Are Disagreeable To Others.

True Friendship Is Self-love At Second Hand; Where, As In A Flattering Mirror We May See Our Virtues Magnified And Our Errors Softened, And Where We May Fancy Our Opinion Of Ourselves Confirmed By An Impartial And Faithful Witness.

A Situation In A Public Office Is Secure, But Laborious And Mechanical, And Without The Great Springs Of Life, Hope And Fear.

He Who Does Nothing Renders Himself Incapable Of Doing Any Thing; But While We Are Executing Any Work, We Are Preparing And Qualifying Ourselves To Undertake Another.

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

Time,--the Most Independent Of All Things.

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

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

Man Is An Intellectual Animal, And Therefore An Everlasting Contradiction To Himself. His Senses Centre In Himself, His Ideas Reach To The Ends Of The Universe; So That He Is Torn In Pieces Between The Two, Without A Possibility Of Its Ever Being Otherwise.

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

Wit Is, In Fact, The Eloquence Of Indifference.

Humanity Is To Be Met With In A Den Of Robbers.

Wit Is The Salt Of Conversation, Not The Food.

The Best Way To Make Ourselves Agreeable To Others Is By Seeming To Think Them So. If We Appear Fully Sensible Of Their Good Qualities They Will Not Complain Of The Want Of Them In Us.

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.

Principle Is A Passion For Truth.

Perhaps The Best Cure For The Fear Of Death Is To Reflect That Life Has A Beginning As Well As An End. There Was A Time When We Were Not: This Gives Us No Concern. Why, Then, Should It Trouble Us That A Time Will Come When We Shall Cease To Be?

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.

Virtue Steals, Like A Guilty Thing, Into The Secret Haunts Of Vice And Infamy, Clings To Their Devoted Victim, And Will Not Be Driven Quite Away. Nothing Can Destroy The Human Heart.

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

Those Who Can Command Themselves Command Others.

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.

The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's Sister, Who Was No Saint, Sat To Canova As A Reclining Venus, And Being Asked If She Did Not Feel A Little Uncomfortable, Replied, "no. There Was A Fire In The Room."

Great Thoughts Reduced To Practice Become Great Acts.

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

The Most Learned Are Often The Most Narrow Minded.

Open Mindedness

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

The Smallest Pain In Our Little Finger Gives Us More Concern Than The Destruction Of Millions Of Our Fellow Beings.

While We Desire, We Do Not Enjoy; And With Enjoyment Desire Ceases.

One Truth Discovered, One Pang Of Regret At Not Being Able To Express It, Is Better Than All The Fluency And Flippancy In The World.

Genius Only Leaves Behind It The Monuments Of Its Strength.

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.

Few Things Tend More To Alienate Friendship Than A Want Of Punctuality In Our Engagements. I Have Known The Breach Of A Promise To Dine Or Sup To Break Up More Than One Intimacy.

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

In Some Situations, If You Say Nothing, You Are Called Dull; If You Talk, You Are Thought Impertinent And Arrogant. It Is Hard To Know What To Do In This Case. The Question Seems To Be, Whether Your Vanity Or Your Prudence Predominates.

Conceit Is Vanity Driven From All Other Shifts, And Forced To Appeal To Itself For Admiration.

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.

The Most Sensible People To Be Met With In Society Are Men Of Business And Of The World, Who Argue From What They See And Know, Instead Of Spinning Cobweb Distinctions Of What Things Ought To Be.

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.

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.

Nothing Gives Such A Blow To Friendship As The Detecting Another In An Untruth. It Strikes At The Root Of Our Confidence Ever After.

We Learn To Curb Our Will And Keep Our Overt Actions Within The Bounds Of Humanity, Long Before We Can Subdue Our Sentiments And Imaginations To The Same Mild Tone.

Painting Gives The Object Itself; Poetry What It Implies. Painting Embodies What A Thing Contains In Itself; Poetry Suggests What Exists Out Of It, In Any Manner Connected With It.

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

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.

Natural Affection Is A Prejudice; For Though We Have Cause To Love Our Nearest Connections Better Than Others, We Have No Reason To Think Them Better Than Others.

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.

Actors Are The Only Honest Hypocrites.

Elegance Is Something More Than Ease; It Is More Than A Freedom From Awkwardness Or Restraint. It Implies, I Conceive, A Precision, A Polish, A Sparkling, Spirited Yet Delicate.

There Are Names Written In Her Immortal Scroll At Which Fame Blushes!

There Is Something Captivating In Spirit And Intrepidity, To Which, We Often Yield As To A Resistless Power; Nor Can He Reasonably Expect, The Confidence Of Others Who Too Apparently Distrusts Himself.

No Man Is Truly Great Who Is Great Only In His Lifetime. The Test Of Greatness Is The Page Of History.

Dandyism Is A Species Of Genius.

Almost Every Sect Of Christianity Is A Perversion Of Its Essence, To Accommodate It To The Prejudices Of The World.

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.

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

It Is Better To Be Able Neither To Read Nor Write Than To Be Able To Do Nothing Else.

A Life Of Action And Danger Moderates The Dread Of Death. It Not Only Gives Us Fortitude To Bear Pain, But Teaches Us At Every Step The Precarious Tenure On Which We Hold Our Present Being.

A Man In Love Prefers His Passion To Every Other Consideration, And Is Fonder Of His Mistress Than He Is Of Virtue. Should She Prove Vicious, She Makes Vice Lovely In His Eyes.

Man Is A Make-believe Animal: He Is Never So Truly Himself As When He Is Acting A Part.

Our Energy Is In Proportion To The Resistance It Meets.

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

Satirists Gain The Applause Of Others Through Fear, Not Through Love.

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.

It Is Not The Passion Of A Mind Struggling With Misfortune, Or The Hopelessness Of Its Desires, But Of A Mind Preying On Itself, And Disgusted With, Or Indifferent To All Other Things.

He Who Is As Faithful To His Principles As He Is To Himself Is The True Partisan.

A Whig Is Properly What Is Called A Trimmer - That Is, A Coward To Both Sides Of The Question, Who Dare Not Be A Knave Nor An Honest Man, But Is A Sort Of Whiffing, Shuffling, Cunning, Silly, Contemptible, Unmeaning Negation Of The Two.

Our Friends Are Generally Ready To Do Everything For Us, Except The Very Thing We Wish Them To Do.

The Fear Of Punishment May Be Necessary To The Suppression Of Vice; But It Also Suspends The Finer Motives Of Virtue.

The Most Silent People Are Generally Those Who Think Most Highly Of Themselves.

Or Have I Passed My Time In Pouring Words Like Water Into Empty Sieves, Rolling A Stone Up A Hill And Then Down Again, Trying To Prove An Argument In The Teeth Of Facts, And Looking For Causes In The Dark, And Not Finding Them?

Experience Makes Us Wise.

[science Is] The Desire To Know Causes.

The Only Impeccable Writers Are Those Who Never Wrote.

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

The Greatest Pleasure In Life Is That Of Reading While We Are Young. I Have Had As Much Of This Pleasure Perhaps As Any One.

Life Is The Art Of Being Well Deceived.

Dandyism Is A Variety Of Genius.

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.

We Are The Creatures Of Imagination, Passion, And Self-will, More Than Of Reason Or Even Of Self-interest. Even In The Common Transactions And Daily Intercourse Of Life, We Are Governed By Whim, Caprice, Prejudice, Or Accident. The Falling Of A Teacup Puts Us Out Of Temper For The Day; And A Quarrel That Commenced About The Pattern Of A Gown May End Only With Our Lives.

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

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

A Great Chessplayer Is Not A Great Man, For He Leaves The World As He Found It.

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

Those Who Have The Largest Hearts Have The Soundest Understandings; And They Are The Truest Philosophers Who Can Forget Themselves.

I Hate To Be Near The Sea, And To Hear It Roaring And Raging Like A Wild Beast In Its Den. It Puts Me In Mind Of The Everlasting Efforts Of The Human Mind, Struggling To Be Free, And Ending Just Where It Began.

That Which Anyone Has Been Long Learning Unwillingly, He Unlearns With Proportional Eagerness And Haste.

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

Those Who Have Little Shall Have Less, And That Those Who Have Much Shall Take All That Others Have Left.

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

There Are Persons Who Are Never Easy Unless They Are Putting Your Books And Papers In Order--that Is, According To Their Notions Of The Matter--and Hide Things Lest They Should Be Lost, Where Neither The Owner Nor Anybody Else Can Find Them. This Is A Sort Of Magpie Faculty. If Anything Is Left Where You Want It, It Is Called Litter. There Is A Pedantry In Housewifery, As Well As In The Gravest Concerns. Abraham Tucker Complained That Whenever His Maid Servant Had Been In His Library, He Could Not See Comfortably To Work Again For Several Days.

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

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

Everything Is In Motion. Everything Flows. Everything Is Vibrating.

Within My Heart Is Lurking Suspicion, And Base Fear, And Shame And Hate; But Above All, Tyrannous Love Sits Throned, Crowned With Her Graces, Silent And In Tears.

Whatever Interests Is Interesting.

If You Give An Audience A Chance They Will Do Half Your Acting For You.

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

We Would Willingly, And Without Remorse, Sacrifice Not Only The Present Moment, But All The Interval (no Matter How Long) That Separates Us From Any Favorite Object.

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

No One Ever Approaches Perfection Except By Stealth, And Unknown To Themselves.

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

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