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Without Life There Can Be No Action — No Objects Of Pursuit — No Restless Desires — No Tormenting Passions. Hence It Is That We Fondly Cling To It — That We Dread Its Termination As The Close, Not Of Enjoyment, But Of Hope.

-William Hazlitt

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Without Life There Can

William Hazlitt

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Without Life There Can Be No Action — No Objects Of Pursuit — No Restless Desires — No Tormenting Passions. Hence It Is That We Fondly Cling To It — That We Dread Its Termination As The Close, Not Of Enjoyment, But Of Hope.

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

The Mind Revolts Against Certain Opinions, As The Stomach Rejects Certain Foods.

Love And Joy Are Twins Or Born Of Each Other.

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.

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

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

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.

Defoe Says That There Were A Hundred Thousand Country Fellows In His Time Ready To Fight To The Death Against Popery, Without Knowing Whether Popery Was A Man Or A Horse.

Habit Is Necessary To Give Power.

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 More You Do, The More You Can Do.

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.

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

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.

The History Of Mankind Is A Romance, A Mask, A Tragedy, Constructed Upon The Principles Of Poetical Justice; It Is A Noble Or Royal Hunt, In Which What Is Sport To The Few Is Death To The Many, And In Which The Spectators Halloo And Encourage The Strong To Set Upon The Weak, And Cry Havoc In The Chase, Though They Do Not Share In The Spoil.

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.

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.

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.

The Perfect Joys Of Heaven Do Not Satisfy The Cravings Of Nature.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Genius, Like Humanity, Rusts For Want Of Use.

All Is Without Form And Void. Someone Said Of His Landscapes That They Were Pictures Of Nothing And Very Like.

I Am Proud Up To The Point Of Equality; Everything Above Or Below That Appears To Me Arrant Impertinence Or Abject Meanness.

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

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

Man Is A Poetical Animal, And Delights In Fiction.

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

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

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

The Garb Of Religion Is The Best Cloak For Power.

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

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

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.

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

Religion Either Makes Men Wise And Virtuous, Or It Makes Them Set Up False Pretenses To Both.

Love May Turn To Indifference With Possession.

Vice, Like Disease, Floats In The Atmosphere.

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

Persons Without Education Certainly Do Not Want Either Acuteness Or Strength Of Mind In What Concerns Themselves, Or In Things Immediately Within Their Observation; But They Have No Power Of Abstraction, No General Standard Of Taste, Or Scale Of Opinion. They See Their Objects Always Near, And Never In The Horizon. Hence Arises That Egotism Which Has Been Remarked As The Characteristic Of Self-taught Men.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

There Is A Secret Pride In Every Human Heart That Revolts At Tyranny. You May Order And Drive An Individual, But You Cannot Make Him Respect You.

Even In The Common Affairs Of Life, In Love, Friendship, And Marriage, How Little Security Have We When We Trust Our Happiness In The Hands Of Others!

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

Our Energy Is In Proportion To The Resistance It Meets.

Though Familiarity May Not Breed Contempt, It Takes Off The Edge Of Admiration.

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.

The Most Learned Are Often The Most Narrow Minded.

Open Mindedness

Time,--the Most Independent Of All Things.

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 Confession Of Our Failings Is A Thankless Office. It Savors Less Of Sincerity Or Modesty Than Of Ostentation. It Seems As If We Thought Our Weaknesses As Good As Other People's Virtues.

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

To Be Wiser Than Other Men Is To Be Honester Than They; And Strength Of Mind Is Only Courage To See And Speak The Truth.

Pride Goes Before A Fall, They Say, And Yet We Often Find, The Folks Who Throw All Pride Away Most Often Fall Behind.

True Friendship Is Self-love At Second-hand.

Men Of The Greatest Genius Are Not Always The Most Prodigal Of Their Encomiums. But Then It Is When Their Range Of Power Is Confined, And They Have In Fact Little Perception, Except Of Their Own Particular Kind Of Excellence.

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

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

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

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

An Orator Can Hardly Get Beyond Commonplaces: If He Does He Gets Beyond His Hearers.

Public Speaking

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.

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

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

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.

I Do Not Think That What Is Called Love At First Sight Is So Great An Absurdity As It Is Sometimes Imagined To Be. We Generally Make Up Our Minds Beforehand To The Sort Of Person We Should Like, Grave Or Gay, Black, Brown, Or Fair; With Golden Tresses Or Raven Locks; - And When We Meet With A Complete Example Of The Qualities We Admire, The Bargain Is Soon Struck.

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

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

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

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

To Great Evils We Submit, We Resent Little Provocations.

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

Those Who Wish To Forget Painful Thoughts Do Well To Absent Themselves For A While From, The Ties And Objects That Recall Them; But We Can Be Said Only To Fulfill Our Destiny In The Place That Gave Us Birth.

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

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.

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?

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

Landscape Painting Is The Obvious Resource Of Misanthropy.

Landscape Painting

Confidence Gives A Fool The Advantage Over A Wise Man.

Shall I Faint, Now That I Have Poured Out The Spirit Of My Mind To The World, And Treated Many Subjects With Truth, With Freedom, With Power, Because I Have Been Followed With One Cry Of Abuse Ever Since For Not Being A Government Tool?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

There Is Nothing More Likely To Drive A Man Mad, Than The Being Unable To Get Rid Of The Idea Of The Distinction Between Right And Wrong, And An Obstinate, Constitutional Preference Of The True To The Agreeable.

Cowardice Is Not Synonymous With Prudence. It Often Happens That The Better Part Of Discretion Is Valor.

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.

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.

No Truly Great Person Ever Thought Themselves So.

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.

Those Who Can Command Themselves Command Others.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Experience Makes Us Wise.

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

The Wretched Are In This Respect Fortunate, That They Have The Strongest Yearning After Happiness; And To Desire Is In Some Sense To Enjoy.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

To Impress The Idea Of Power On Others, They Must Be Made In Some Way To Feel It.

As We Are Poetical In Our Natures, So We Delight In Fable.

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.

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

There Is Room Enough In Human Life To Crowd Almost Every Art And Science In It. If We Pass ""no Day Without A Line""-visit No Place Without The Company Of A Book-we May With Ease Fill Libraries Or Empty Them Of Their Contents. The More We Do, The More Busy We Are, The More Leisure We Have.

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

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

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

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

This Is The Test And Triumph Of Originality, Not To Show Us What Has Never Been, And What We May Therefore Very Easily Never Have Dreamt Of, But To Point Out To Us What Is Before Our Eyes And Under Our Feet, Though We Have Had No Suspicion Of Its Existence, For Want Of Sufficient Strength Of Intuition, Of Determined Grasp Of Mind To Seize And Retain It.

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.

Poetry Is All That Is Worth Remembering In Life.

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

Beauty Everywhere

A Person Who Talks With Equal Vivacity On Every Subject, Excites No Interest In Any. Repose Is As Necessary In Conversation As In A Picture.

A Thing Is Not Vulgar Merely Because It Is Common.

No Young Man Ever Thinks He Shall Die.

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

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

The Present Is An Age Of Talkers, And Not Of Doers; And The Reason Is, That The World Is Growing Old. We Are So Far Advanced In The Arts And Sciences, That We Live In Retrospect, And Dote On Past Achievement.

We Do Not Attend To The Advice Of The Sage And Experienced Because We Think They Are Old, Forgetting That They Once Were Young And Placed In The Same Situations As Ourselves.

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.

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

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

Our Contempt For Others Proves Nothing But The Illiberality And Narrowness Of Our Own Views.

We Can Be Said Only To Fulfil Our Destiny In The Place That Gave Us Birth. I Should On This Account Like Well Enough To Spend The Whole Of My Life In Travelling Abroad, If I Could Anywhere Borrow Another Life To Spend Afterwards At Home!

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

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

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.

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.

So I Have Loitered My Life Away, Reading Books, Looking At Pictures, Going To Plays, Hearing, Thinking, Writing On What Pleased Me Best. I Have Wanted Only One Thing To Make Me Happy, But Wanting That Have Wanted Everything.

The Great Have Private Feelings Of Their Own, To Which The Interests Of Humanity And Justice Must Curtsy. Their Interests Are So Far From Being The Same As Those Of The Community, That They Are In Direct And Necessary Opposition To Them; Their Power Is At The Expense Of Our Weakness; Their Riches Of Our Poverty; Their Pride Of Our Degradation; Their Splendour Of Our Wretchedness; Their Tyranny Of Our Servitude.

The Worst Old Age Is That Of The Mind.

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.

There Are Few Things In Which We Deceive Ourselves More Than In The Esteem We Profess To Entertain For Our Firends. It Is Little Better Than A Piece Of Quackery. The Truth Is, We Think Of Them As We Please, That Is, As They Please Or Displease Us.

Abuse Is An Indirect Species Of Homage.

If I Have Not Read A Book Before, It Is, For All Intents And Purposes, New To Me Whether It Was Printed Yesterday Or Three Hundred Years Ago.

The Last Pleasure In Life Is The Sense Of Discharging Our Duty.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

The Public Have Neither Shame Or Gratitude.

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.

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.

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

Greatness Is Great Power, Producing Great Effects. It Is Not Enough That A Man Has Great Power In Himself, He Must Shew It To All The World In A Way That Cannot Be Hid Or Gainsaid.

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

He Who Undervalues Himself Is Justly Undervalued By Others.

The Corpse Of Friendship Is Not Worth Embalming.

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

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

Rules And Models Destroy Genius And Art.

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

A Great Chess-player Is Not A Great Man, For He Leaves The World As He Found It. No Act Terminating In Itself Constitutes Greatness. This Will Apply To All Displays Of Power Or Trials Of Skill, Which Are Confined To The Momentary, Individual Effort, And Construct No Permanent Image Or Trophy Of Themselves Without Them

A Great Mind Is One That Can Forget Or Look Beyond Itself.

Faith Is Necessary To Victory.

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

I Am Then Never Less Alone Than When Alone

Painters... Are The Most Lively Observers Of What Passes In The World About Them, And The Closest Observers Of What Passes In Their Own Minds.

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

A Really Great Man Has Always An Idea Of Something Greater Than Himself.

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

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

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