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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.

-William Hazlitt

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Virtue Steals, Like A

William Hazlitt

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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

No Man Would, I Think, Exchange His Existence With Any Other Man, However Fortunate. We Had As Lief Not Be, As Not Be Ourselves.

A Gentleman Is One Who Understands And Shows Every Mark Of Deference To The Claims Of Self-love In Others, And Exacts It In Return From Them.

It Is Only Those Who Never Think At All, Or Else Who Have Accustomed Themselves To Blood Invariably On Abstract Ideas, That Ever Feel Ennui.

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.

The Humblest Painter Is A True Scholar; And The Best Of Scholars The Scholar Of Nature.

Those Who Object To Wit Are Envious Of It.

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.

Popularity Is Neither Fame Nor Greatness.

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

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.

The Art Of Pleasing Consists In Being Pleased.

Refinement Creates Beauty Everywhere. It Is The Grossness Of The Spectator That Discovers Anything Like Grossness In The Object.

Beauty Everywhere

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.

Whatever Is Placed Beyond The Reach Of Sense And Knowledge, Whatever Is Imperfectly Discerned, The Fancy Pieces Out At Its Leisure; And All But The Present Moment, But The Present Spot, Passion Claims For Its Own, And Brooding Over It With Wings Outspread, Stamps It With An Image Of Itself. Passion Is Lord Of Infinite Space, And Distant Objects Please Because They Border On Its Confines And Are Moulded By Its Touch.

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

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.

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.

The Ignorance Of The World Leaves One At The Mercy Of Its Malice.

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.

I Have Known Persons Without A Friend--never Any One Without Some Virtue. The Virtues Of The Former Conspired With Their Vices To Make The Whole World Their Enemies.

The Seat Of Knowledge Is In The Head; Of Wisdom, In The Heart. We Are Sure To Judge Wrong, If We Do Not Feel Right.

Familiarity Confounds All Traits Of Distinction; Interest And Prejudice Take Away The Power Of Judging.

The Dupe Of Friendship, And The Fool Of Love; Have I Not Reason To Hate And To Despise Myself? Indeed I Do; And Chiefly For Not Having Hated And Despised The World Enough.

Lost Friendship

One Of The Pleasantest Things In The World Is Going On A Journey; But I Like To Go By Myself.

Kings Ought Never To Be Seen Upon The Stage. In The Abstract, They Are Very Disagreeable Characters: It Is Only While Living That They Are 'the Best Of Kings'. It Is Their Power, Their Splendour, It Is The Apprehension Of The Personal Consequences Of Their Favour Or Their Hatred That Dazzles The Imagination And Suspends The Judgement Of Their Favourites Or Their Vassals; But Death Cancels The Bond Of Allegiance And Of Interest; And Seen As They Were, Their Power And Their Pretensions Look Monstrous And Ridiculous.

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.

He Who Undervalues Himself Is Justly Undervalued By Others.

Our Notions With Respect To The Importance Of Life, And Our Attachment To It, Depend On A Principle Which Has Very Little To Do With Its Happiness Or Its Misery. The Love Of Life Is, In General, The Effect Not Of Our Enjoyments, But Of Our Passions.

The Corpse Of Friendship Is Not Worth Embalming.

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.

Experience Makes Us Wise.

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

Habit In Most Cases Hardens And Encrusts By Taking Away The Keener Edge Of Our Sensations: But Does It Not In Others Quicken And Refine, By Giving A Mechanical Facility And By Engrafting An Acquired Sense?

The Way To Secure Success Is To Be More Anxious About Obtaining Than About Deserving It.

His Hypothesis Goes To This - To Make The Common Run Of His Readers Fancy They Can Do All That Can Be Done By Genius, And To Make The Man Of Genius Believe He Can Only Do What Is To Be Done By Mechanical Rules And Systematic Industry. This Is Not A Very Feasible Scheme; Nor Is Sir Joshua Sufficiently Clear And Explicit In His Reasoning In Support Of It.

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.

We Do Not Die Wholly At Our Deaths: We Have Mouldered Away Gradually Long Before. Faculty After Faculty, Interest After Interest, Attachment After Attachment Disappear: We Are Torn From Ourselves While Living.

A Certain Excess Of Animal Spirits With Thoughtless Good-humor Will Often Make More Enemies Than The Most Deliberate Spite And Ill-nature, Which Is On Its Guard, And Strikes With Caution And Safety.

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

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.

Just As Much As We See In Others We Have In Ourselves.

Self Confidence

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

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

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.

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

Art Is The Microscope Of The Mind, Which Sharpens The Wit As The Other Does The Sight; And Converts Every Object Into A Little Universe In Itself. Art May Be Said To Draw Aside The Veil From Nature. To Those Who Are Perfectly Unskilled In The Practice, Unimbued With The Principles Of Art, Most Objects Present Only A Confused Mass.

Weakness Has Its Hidden Resources, As Well As Strength. There Is A Degree Of Folly And Meanness Which We Cannot Calculate Upon, And By Which We Are As Much Liable To Be Foiled As By The Greatest Ability Or Courage.

Wit Is The Rarest Quality To Be Met With Among People Of Education, And The Most Common Among The Uneducated.

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

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.

The Expression Of A Gentleman's Face Is Not So Much That Of Refinement, As Of Flexibility, Not Of Sensibility And Enthusiasm As Of Indifference; It Argues Presence Of Mind Rather Than Enlargement Of Ideas.

Presence Of Mind

The Most Learned Are Often The Most Narrow Minded.

Open Mindedness

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?

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.

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.

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.

Silence Is One Great Art Of Conversation.

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.

Rules And Models Destroy Genius And Art.

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

Learning Is Its Own Exceeding Great Reward.

Dandyism Is A Species Of Genius.

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.

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.

Books Wind Into The Heart.

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.

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

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

The Imagination Is Of So Delicate A Texture That Even Words Wound It.

Vice, Like Disease, Floats In The Atmosphere.

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.

Vice Is Man's Nature: Virtue Is A Habit--or A Mask.

The Vain Man Makes A Merit Of Misfortune, And Triumphs In His Disgrace.

The Most Rational Cure After All For The Inordinate Fear Of Death Is To Set A Just Value On Life.

Love At First Sight Is Only Realizing An Imagination That Has Always Haunted Us; Or Meeting With A Face, A Figure, Or Cast Of Expression In Perfection That We Have Seen And Admired In A Less Degree Or In Less Favorable Circumstances A Hundred Times Before.

I Hate Anything That Occupies More Space Than It Is Worth... I Hate To See A Parcel Of Big Words Without Anything In Them.

Persons Who Undertake To Pry Into, Or Cleanse Out All The Filth Of A Common Sewer, Either Cannot Have Very Nice Noses, Or Will Soon Lose Them.

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.

Despair Swallows Up Cowardice.

The Last Sort I Shall Mention Are Verbal Critics - Mere Word-catchers, Fellows That Pick Out A Word In A Sentence And A Sentence In A Volume, And Tell You It Is Wrong. The Title Of Ultra-crepidarian Critics Has Been Given To A Variety Of This Species.

It May Be Made A Question Whether Men Grow Wiser As They Grow Older, Anymore Than They Grow Stronger Or Healthier Or Honest.

We Are Never So Much Disposed To Quarrel With Others As When We Are Dissatisfied With Ourselves.

Positive Thinking

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Men Will Die For An Opinion As Soon As For Anything Else.

Poverty, Labor, And Calamity Are Not Without Their Luxuries, Which The Rich, The Indolent, And The Fortunate In Vain Seek For.

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

To Die Is Only To Be As We Were Before We Were Born; Yet No One Feels Any Remorse, Or Regret, Or Repugnance, In Contemplating This Last Idea.

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.

Silence Is One Great Art Of Conversation. He Is Not A Fool Who Knows When To Hold His Tongue; And A Person May Gain Credit For Sense, Eloquence, Wit, Who Merely Says Nothing To Lessen The Opinion Which Others Have Of These Qualities In Themselves.

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

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

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

A Wise Traveler Never Despises His Own Country.

Give Me The Clear Blue Sky Over My Head, And The Green Turf Beneath My Feet, A Winding Road Before Me, And A Three Hours' March To Dinner - And Then To Thinking! ... I Begin To Feel, Think, And Be Myself Again. Instead Of An Awkward Silence, Broken By Attempts At Wit Or Dull Common-places, Mine Is That Undisturbed Silence Of The Heart Which Alone Is Perfect Eloquence.

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

A Strong Passion For Any Object Will Ensure Success, For The Desire Of The End Will Point Out The Means.

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

Those Only Deserve A Monument Who Do Not Need One.

We Talk Little When We Do Not Talk About Ourselves.

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

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.

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

The Secret Of The Difficulties Of Those People Who Make A Great Deal Of Money, And Yet Are Always In Want Of It, Is This-they Throw It Away As Soon As They Get It On The First Whim Or Extravagance That Strikes Them, And Have Nothing Left To Meet Ordinary Expenses Or Discharge Old Debts.

A Mighty Stream Of Tendency.

Genius Only Leaves Behind It The Monuments Of Its Strength.

But Of All Footmen The Lowest Class Is Literary Footmen.

A King (as Such) Is Not A Great Man. He Has Great Power, But It Is Not His Own.

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

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

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.

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!

In What We Really Understand, We Reason But Little.

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 Man Who Does Not Endeavour To Seem More Than He Is Will Generally Be Thought Nothing Of. We Habitually Make Such Large Deductions For Pretence And Imposture That No Real Merit Will Stand Against Them. It Is Necessary To Set Off Our Good Qualities With A Certain Air Of Plausibility And Self-importance, As Some Attention To Fashion Is Necessary.

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

He Who Would See Old Hoghton Right Must View It By The Pale Moonlight.

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

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

A Thing Is Not Vulgar Merely Because It Is Common.

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

The Severest Critics Are Always Those Who Have Either Never Attempted, Or Who Have Failed In Original Composition.

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.

Life Is The Art Of Being Well Deceived; And In Order That The Deception May Succeed It Must Be Habitual And Uninterrupted.

We May Be Willing To Tell A Story Twice, Never To Hear It More Than Once.

To Think Ill Of Mankind And Not Wish Ill To Them, Is Perhaps The Highest Wisdom And Virtue.

An Accomplished Coquette Excites The Passions Of Others, In Proportion As She Feels None Herself.

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.

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

In Public Speaking, We Must Appeal Either To The Prejudices Of Others, Or To The Love Of Truth And Justice. If We Think Merely Of Displaying Our Own Ability, We Shall Ruin Every Cause We Undertake.

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.

I Am Not, In The Ordinary Acceptation Of The Term, A Good-natured Man; That Is, Many Things Annoy Me Besides What Interferes With My Own Ease And Interest. I Hate A Lie; A Piece Of Injustice Wounds Me To The Quick, Though Nothing But The Report Of It Reach Me. Therefore I Have Made Many Enemies And Few Friends; For The Public Know Nothing Of Well-wishers, And Keep A Wary Eye On Those Who Would Reform Them.

Modesty Is The Lowest Of The Virtues, And Is A Real Confession Of The Deficiency It Indicates. He Who Undervalues Himself Is Justly Undervalued By Others.

We Had Rather Do Anything Than Acknowledge The Merit Of Another If We Can Help It. We Cannot Bear A Superior Or An Equal. Hence Ridicule Is Sure To Prevail Over Truth, For The Malice Of Mankind, Thrown Into The Scale, Gives The Casting Weight.

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.

Habitual Liars Invent Falsehoods Not To Gain Any End Or Even To Deceive Their Hearers, But To Amuse Themselves. It Is Partly Practice And Partly Habit. It Requires An Effort In Them To Speak Truth.

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.

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

Death Puts An End To Rivalship And Competition. The Dead Can Boast No Advantage Over Us, Nor Can We Triumph Over Them.

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

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.

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

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.

Actors Are The Only Honest Hypocrites.

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

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.

We Are Thankful For Good-will Rather Than For Services, For The Motive Than The Quantum Of Favor Received.

You Know More Of A Road By Having Traveled It Than By All The Conjectures And Descriptions In The World.

The Irish Are Hearty, The Scotch Plausible, The French Polite, The Germans Good-natured, The Italians Courtly, The Spaniards Reserved And Decorous - The English Alone Seem To Exist In Taking And Giving Offense.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 Multitude Who Require To Be Led, Still Hate Their Leaders.

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

Do Not Keep On With A Mockery Of Friendship After The Substance Is Gone - But Part, While You Can Part Friends. Bury The Carcass Of Friendship: It Is Not Worth Embalming.

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.

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

The Public Is So In Awe Of Its Own Opinion That It Never Dares To Form Any, But Catches Up The First Idle Rumour, Lest It Should Be Behindhand In Its Judgment, And Echoes It Till It Is Deafened With The Sound Of Its Own Voice.

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.

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.

There Is A Quiet Repose And Steadiness About The Happiness Of Age, If The Life Has Been Well Spent. Its Feebleness Is Not Painful. The Nervous System Has Lost Its Acuteness. But, In Mature Years We Feel That A Burn, A Scald, A Cut, Is More Tolerable Than It Was In The Sensitive Period Of Youth.

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

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.

Prejudice Is The Child Of Ignorance.

To Speak Highly Of One With Whom We Are Intimate Is A Species Of Egotism. Our Modesty As Well As Our Jealousy Teaches Us Caution On This Subject.

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

A Distinction Has Been Made Between Acuteness And Subtlety Of Understanding. This Might Be Illustrated By Saying That Acuteness Consists In Taking Up The Points Or Solid Atoms, Subtlety In Feeling The Air Of Truth.

The Surest Hindrance Of Success Is To Have Too High A Standard Of Refinement In Our Own Minds, Or Too High An Opinion Of The Judgment Of The Public. He Who Is Determined Not To Be Satisfied With Anything Short Of Perfection Will Never Do Anything To Please Himself Or Others.

An Honest Man Is Respected By All Parties.

Liberty Is The Only True Riches: Of All The Rest We Are At Once The Masters And The Slaves.

What I Mean By Living To One's Self Is Living In The World, As In It, Not Of It.

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.

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

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

The Most Insignificant People Are The Most Apt To Sneer At Others. They Are Safe From Reprisals. And Have No Hope Of Rising In Their Own Self Esteem But By Lowering Their Neighbors.

I Am Then Never Less Alone Than When Alone

General Principles Are Not The Less True Or Important Because From Their Nature They Elude Immediate Observation; They Are Like The Air, Which Is Not The Less Necessary Because We Neither See Nor Feel It.

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

The Soul Of Dispatch Is Decision.

Women Never Reason, And Therefore They Are (comparatively) Seldom Wrong.

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

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.

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.

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.

Languages Happily Restrict The Mind To What Is Of Its Own Native Growth And Fitted For It, As Rivers And Mountains Bond Countries; Or The Empire Of Learning, As Well As States, Would Become Unwieldy And Overgrown.

He Is A Hypocrite Who Professes What He Does Not Believe; Not He Who Does Not Practice All He Wishes Or Approves.

Hope Is The Best Possession.

No Wise Man Can Have A Contempt For The Prejudices Of Others; And He Should Even Stand In A Certain Awe Of His Own, As If They Were Aged Parents And Monitors. They May In The End Prove Wiser Than He.

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Spencer Johnson

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