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Wherever The Government Does Not Emanate...from The People, The Principle Of The Government, The Esprit De Corps, The Point Of Honour, In All Those Connected With It, And Raised By It To Privileges Above The Law And Above Humanity, Will Be Hatred To The People.

-William Hazlitt

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Wherever The Government Does

William Hazlitt

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Wherever The Government Does Not Emanate...from The People, The Principle Of The Government, The Esprit De Corps, The Point Of Honour, In All Those Connected With It, And Raised By It To Privileges Above The Law And Above Humanity, Will Be Hatred To The People.

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

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.

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.

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.

Old Friendships Are Like Meats Served Up Repeatedly, Cold, Comfortless, And Distasteful. The Stomach Turns Against Them.

Repose Is As Necessary In Conversation As In A Picture.

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.

Men Of Gravity Are Intellectual Stammerers, Whose Thoughts Move Slowly.

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.

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.

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

A Man's Reputation Is Not In His Own Keeping, But Lies At The Mercy Of The Profligacy Of Others. Calumny Requires No Proof. The Throwing Out [of] Malicious Imputations Against Any Character Leaves A Stain, Which No After-refutation Can Wipe Out. To Create An Unfavorable Impression, It Is Not Necessary That Certain Things Should Be True, But That They Have Been Said. The Imagination Is Of So Delicate A Texture That Even Words Wound It.

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.

The Garb Of Religion Is The Best Cloak For Power.

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

Perhaps The Best Cure For The Fear Of Death Is To Reflect That Life Has A Beginning As Well As An End.

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

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.

A Man's Reputation Is Not In His Own Keeping, But Lies At The Mercy Of The Profligacy Of Others. Calumny Requires No Proof.

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

Poetry Is The Universal Language Which The Heart Holds With Nature And Itself. He Who Has A Contempt For Poetry, Cannot Have Much Respect For Himself, Or For Anything Else.

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.

Diffidence And Awkwardness Are Antidotes To Love.

One Said A Tooth Drawer Was A Kind Of Unconscionable Trade, Because His Trade Was Nothing Else But To Take Away Those Things Whereby Every Man Gets His Living.

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

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

It Is Only Necessary To Raise A Bugbear Before The English Imagination In Order To Govern It At Will. Whatever They Hate Or Fear, They Implicitly Believe In, Merely From The Scope It Gives To These Passions.

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.

Keep Your Misfortunes To Yourself.

Tears May Be Considered As The Natural And Involuntary Resource Of The Mind Overcome By Some Sudden And Violent Emotion, Before Ithas Had Time To Reconcile Its Feelings To The Change In Circumstances: While Laughter May Be Defined To Be The Same Sort Of Convulsive And Involuntary Movement, Occasioned By Mere Sur Prise Or Contrast (in The Absence Of Any More Serious Emotion), Before It Has Time To Reconcile Its Belief To Contradictory Appearances.

There Cannot Be A Surer Proof Of Low Origin, Or Of An Innate Meanness Of Disposition, Than To Be Always Talking And Thinking Of Being Genteel.

Knowledge Is Pleasure As Well As Power.

He Who Undervalues Himself Is Justly Undervalued By Others.

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.

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

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

A Hair In The Head Is Worth Two In The Brush.

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?

Envy Is The Most Universal Passion. We Only Pride Ourselves On The Qualities We Possess, Or Think We Possess; But We Envy The Pretensions We Have, And Those Which We Have Not, And Do Not Even Wish For. We Envy The Greatest Qualities And Every Trifling Advantage. We Envy The Most Ridiculous Appearance Or Affectation Of Superiority. We Envy Folly And Conceit; Nay, We Go So Far As To Envy Whatever Confers Distinction Of Notoriety, Even Vice And Infamy.

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.

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.

We Grow Tired Of Everything But Turning Others Into Ridicule, And Congratulating Ourselves On Their Defects.

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.

Those Who Can Command Themselves Command Others.

Learning Is Its Own Exceeding Great Reward.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

Spleen Can Subsist On Any Kind Of Food.

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

Nothing Is More Unjust Or Capricious Than Public Opinion.

We Talk Little When We Do Not Talk About Ourselves.

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

Dandyism Is A Variety Of Genius.

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.

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

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

You Are Never Tired Of Painting, Because You Have To Set Down Not What You Know Already, But What You Have Just Discovered.

There Are No Rules For Friendship. It Must Be Left To Itself. We Cannot Force It Any More Than Love.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Belief Is With Them Mechanical, Voluntary: They Believe What They Are Paid For - They Swear To That Which Turns To Account. Do You Suppose, That After Years Spent In This Manner, They Have Any Feeling Left Answering To The Difference Between Truth And Falsehood?

Our Energy Is In Proportion To The Resistance It Meets.

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.

Good Temper Is An Estate For Life.

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.

A Scholar Is Like A Book Written In A Dead Language. It Is Not Every One That Can Read In It.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Person Whose Doors I Enter With Most Pleasure, And Quit With Most Regret, Never Did Me The Smallest Favor.

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

Of All Eloquence A Nickname Is The Most Concise; Of All Arguments The Most Unanswerable.

Some People Break Promises For The Pleasure Of Breaking Them.

Keeping Promises

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

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

Popularity Is Neither Fame Nor Greatness.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

To Great Evils We Submit, We Resent Little Provocations.

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

Confidence Gives A Fool The Advantage Over A Wise Man.

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

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

Anyone Who Has Passed Though The Regular Gradations Of A Classical Education, And Is Not Made A Fool By It, May Consider Himself As Having Had A Very Narrow Escape.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Those People Who Are Always Improving Never Become Great. Greatness Is An Eminence, The Ascent To Which Is Steep And Lofty, And Which A Man Must Seize On At Once By Natural Boldness And Vigor, And Not By Patient, Wary Steps.

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

Grace In Women Has More Effect Than Beauty. We Sometimes See A Certain Fine Self-possession, An Habitual Voluptuousness Of Character, Which Reposes On Its Own Sensations And Derives Pleasure From All Around It, That Is More Irresistible Than Any Other Attraction. There Is An Air Of Languid Enjoyment In Such Persons, "in Their Eyes, In Their Arms, And Their Hands, And Their Face," Which Robs Us Of Ourselves, And Draws Us By A Secret Sympathy Towards Them.

Principle Is A Passion For Truth.

We Judge Of Others For The Most Part By Their Good Opinion Of Themselves; Yet Nothing Gives Such Offense Or Creates So Many Enemies, As That Extreme Self-complacency Or Superciliousness Of Manner, Which Appears To Set The Opinion Of Every One Else At Defiance.

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

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.

A Man Is A Hypocrite Only When He Affects To Take A Delight In What He Does Not Feel, Not Because He Takes A Perverse Delight In Opposite Things.

Wit Is, In Fact, The Eloquence Of Indifference.

The Most Violent Friendships Soonest Wear Themselves Out.

In What We Really Understand, We Reason But Little.

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

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."

Mankind Are A Herd Of Knaves And Fools. It Is Necessary To Join The Crowd, Or Get Out Of Their Way, In Order Not To Be Trampled To Death By Them.

The English (it Must Be Owned) Are Rather A Foul-mouthed Nation.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Discussing The Characters And Foibles Of Common Friends Is A Great Sweetness And Cement Of Friendship.

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

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.

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.

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.

Tyrants Forego All Respect For Humanity In Proportion As They Are Sunk Beneath It. Taught To Believe Themselves Of A Different Species, They Really Become So, Lose Their Participation With Their Kind, And In Mimicking The God Dwindle Into The Brute.

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 Fit That Every Man Should Travel; It Makes A Wise Man Better, And A Fool Worse.

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

That Which Is Not, Shall Never Be; That Which Is, Shall Never Cease To Be. To The Wise, These Truths Are Self-evident.

The More We Do, The More We Can Do; The More Busy We Are, The More Leisure We Have.

Leisure Activities

I'm Not Smart, But I Like To Observe. Millions Saw The Apple Fall, But Newton Was The One Who Asked Why.

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

The Insolence Of The Vulgar Is In Proportion To Their Ignorance. They Treat Everything With Contempt Which They Do Not Understand.

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

The Soul Of A Journey Is Liberty, Perfect Liberty, To Think, Feel, Do Just As One Pleases.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

The Art Of Pleasing Consists In Being Pleased.

Books Are A World In Themselves, It Is True; But They Are Not The Only World. The World Itself Is A Volume Larger Than All The Libraries In It.

The Essence Of Poetry Is Will And Passion.

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.

When One Can Do Better Than Everyone Else In The Same Walk, One Does Not Make Any Very Painful Exertions To Outdo Oneself. The Progress Of Improvement Ceases Nearly At The Point Where Competition Ends.

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.

The World Loves To Be Amused By Hollow Professions, To Be Deceived By Flattering Appearances, To Live In A State Of Hallucination; And Can Forgive Everything But The Plain, Downright, Simple, Honest Truth.

The Mind Of Man Is Like A Clock That Is Always Running Down, And Requires To Be Constantly Wound Up.

We Are Governed By Sympathy; And The Extent Of Our Sympathy Is Determined By That Of Our Sensibility

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 We Are Long Absent From Our Friends, We Forget Them; If We Are Constantly With Them, We Despise Them.

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

Self Confidence

Grace Is The Absence Of Everything That Indicates Pain Or Difficulty, Hesitation Or Incongruity.

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

The Chain Of Habit Coils Itself Around The Heart Like A Serpent, To Gnaw And Stifle It.

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

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

Actors Are The Only Honest Hypocrites.

Words Are The Only Things That Last For Ever.

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

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

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.

To Give A Reason For Anything Is To Breed A Doubt Of It.

When You Find Out A Man's Ruling Passion, Beware Of Crossing Him In It.

No Truly Great Person Ever Thought Themselves So.

By Conversing With The Mighty Dead, We Imbibe Sentiment With Knowledge. We Become Strongly Attached To Those Who Can No Longer Either Hurt Or Serve Us, Except Through The Influence Which They Exert Over The Mind. We Feel The Presence Of That Power Which Gives Immortality To Human Thoughts And Actions, And Catch The Flame Of Enthusiasm From All Nations And Ages.

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.

Time,--the Most Independent Of All Things.

Talent Is The Capacity Of Doing Anything That Depends On Application And Industry And It Is A Voluntary Power, While Genius Is Involuntary.

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.

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

As Is Our Confidence, So Is Our Capacity.

Positive Attitude

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.

It Is Essential To The Triumph Of Reform That It Should Never Succeed.

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.

Every Man, In His Own Opinion, Forms An Exception To The Ordinary Rules Of Morality.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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