Background Image

...

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.

-William Hazlitt

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

You Will Hear More

William Hazlitt

...

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.

Views: 5796

Topic

More From William Hazlitt

Features Alone Do Not Run In The Blood; Vices And Virtues, Genius And Folly, Are Transmitted Through The Same Sure But Unseen Channel.

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

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

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

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

Popularity Disarms Envy In Well-disposed Minds. Those Are Ever The Most Ready To Do Justice To Others Who Feel That The World Has Done Them Justice. When Success Has Not This Effect In Opening The Mind, It Is A Sign That It Has Been Ill Deserved.

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

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.

Genius, Like Humanity, Rusts For Want Of Use.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

We Imagine That The Admiration Of The Works Of Celebrated Men Has Become Common, Because The Admiration Of Their Names Has Become So.

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.

Those Only Deserve A Monument Who Do Not Need One; That Is, Who Have Raised Themselves A Monument In The Minds And Memories Of Men.

Zeal Will Do More Than Knowledge.

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.

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.

No Really Great Man Ever Thought Himself So.

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

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.

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

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.

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 Garb Of Religion Is The Best Cloak For Power.

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.

[science Is] The Desire To Know Causes.

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.

A Mighty Stream Of Tendency.

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

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.

If The World Were Good For Nothing Else, It Is A Fine Subject For Speculation.

Gallantry To Women - The Sure Road To Their Favor - Is Nothing But The Appearance Of Extreme Devotion To All Their Wants And Wishes, A Delight In Their Satisfaction, And A Confidence In Yourself As Being Able To Contribute Toward 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.

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!

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.

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.

The Most Violent Friendships Soonest Wear Themselves Out.

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.

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

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

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

Positive Thinking

Dandyism Is A Species Of Genius.

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.

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.

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

Self Confidence

Hope Is The Best Possession.

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.

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.

The Incentive To Ambition Is The Love Of Power.

Envy Is Littleness Of Soul.

Asleep, Nobody Is A Hypocrite

The Greatest Offence Against Virtue Is To Speak Ill Of It.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Reflection Makes Men Cowards.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

If We Use No Ceremony Towards Others, We Shall Be Treated Without Any. People Are Soon Tired Of Paying Trifling Attentions To Those Who Receive Them With Coldness, And Return Them With Neglect.

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

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.

Violence Ever Defeats Its Own Ends. Where You Cannot Drive You Can Always Persuade. A Gentle Word, A Kind Look, A God-natured Smile Can Work Wonders And Accomplish Miracles. There Is A Secret Pride In Every Human Heart Than Revolts At Tyranny. You May Order And Drive An Individual, But You Cannot Make Him Respect You.

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

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

We Can Scarcely Hate Anyone That We Know.

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 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.

To The Proud The Slightest Repulse Or Disappointment Is The Last Indignity.

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.

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.

Popularity Is Neither Fame Nor Greatness.

True Friendship Is Self-love At Second-hand.

He Who Undervalues Himself Is Justly Undervalued By Others.

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

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

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

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

The Best Part Of Our Lives We Pass In Counting On What Is To Come.

True Modesty And True Pride Are Much The Same Thing: Both Consist In Setting A Just Value On Ourselves - Neither More Nor Less.

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.

Whatever Interests Is Interesting.

We Grow Tired Of Ourselves, Much More Of Other People.

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.

The Difference Between The Vanity Of A Frenchman And An Englishman Seems To Be This: The One Thinks Everything Right That Is French, The Other Thinks Everything Wrong That Is Not English.

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

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

Beauty Everywhere

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

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.

He Who Lives Wisely To Himself And His Own Heart Looks At The Busy World Through The Loopholes Of Retreat, And Does Not Want To Mingle In The Fray.

To-day Kings, To-marrow Beggars, It Is Only When They Are Themselves That They Are Nothing.

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.

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

Public Speaking

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

To Think Justly, We Must Understand What Others Mean. To Know The Value Of Our Thoughts, We Must Try Their Effect On Other Minds.

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.

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.

Nothing Is More Unjust Or Capricious Than Public Opinion.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

A Wise Traveler Never Despises His Own Country.

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

Avarice Is The Miser's Dream, As Fame Is The Poet's.

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.

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

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.

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.

An Honest Man Is Respected By All Parties.

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.

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

A Thing Is Not Vulgar Merely Because It Is Common.

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

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 Is Hard For Any One To Be An Honest Politician Who Is Not Born And Bred A Dissenter.

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

Wit Is The Salt Of Conversation, Not The Food.

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

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.

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

The More We Do, The More We Can Do.

Leisure Activities

Famous Motivational

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

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.

Dandyism Is A Variety Of Genius.

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.

Let A Man's Talents Or Virtues Be What They May, He Will Only Feel Satisfaction In His Society As He Is Satisfied In Himself.

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.

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

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

Want Of Principle Is Power. Truth And Honesty Set A Limit To Our Efforts, Which Impudence And Hypocrisy Easily Overleap.

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

I Have A Much Greater Ambition To Be The Best Racket Player Than The Best Prose Writer.

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.

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

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.

Wit Is, In Fact, The Eloquence Of Indifference.

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

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 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.

Learning Is Its Own Exceeding Great Reward.

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 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 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.

Dr. Johnson Was A Lazy Learned Man Who Liked To Think And Talk Better Than To Read Or Write; Who, However, Wrote Much And Well, But Too Often By Rote.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The Art Of Pleasing Consists In Being Pleased.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Men Are In Numberless Instances Qualified For Certain Things, For No Other Reason Than Because They Are Qualified For Nothing Else.

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

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.

Good Temper Is An Estate For Life.

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.

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.

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

There Is Nothing Good To Be Had In The Country, Or If There Is, They Will Not Let You Have It.

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

It Is Not Fit That Every Man Should Travel; It Makes A Wise Man Better, And A Fool Worse.

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.

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."

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

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

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

Trending Author

Terence McKenna

Mignon McLaughlin

Michael Jackson

Category