All Quotes

"No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us."

"Times of general calamity and confusion, have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm."

"He that sympathizes in all the happiness of others, perhaps himself enjoys the safest happiness."

""Defendit numerus," is the maxim of the foolish; "Deperdit numerus," of the wise. The fact is, that an honest man will continue to be so, though surrounded on all sides by rogues. The whole world is turned upside down once in twenty-four hours; yet no one thinks of standing upon his head, rather than on his heels. He that can be honest, only because every one else is honest, or good, only because all around him are good, might have continued an angel, if he had been born one, but being a man, he will only add to that number, numberless, who go to hell for the bad things they have done, and for the good things which they intended to do."

"Ambition is to the mind, what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower, by reason of our blindness. But alas, when we are at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of real misery. We are placed where time cannot improve, but must impair us; where chance and change cannot befriend, but may betray us; in short, by attaining all we wish, and gaining all we want, we have only reached a pinnacle, where we have nothing to hope, but every thing to fear."

"None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation."

"Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right, without them."

"An elegant writer has observed, that wit may do very well for a mistress, but that he should prefer reason for a wife."

"When you have nothing to say, say nothing; a weak defense strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a bad reply."

"We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them, because we hate them. Those friendships that succeed to such aversions are usually firm, for those qualities must be sterling that could not only gain our hearts, but conquer our prejudices. But the misfortune is, that we carry these prejudices into things far more serious than our friendships. Thus, there are truths which some men despise, because they have not examined, and which they will not examine, because they despise."

"As in literature we shall find many things that are true, and some things that are new, but very few things that are both true and new, so also in life, we shall find many men that are great, and some men that are good, but very few men that are both great and good."

"We ask advice, but we mean approbation."

"Our incomes should be like our shoes, if too small, they will gall and pinch us, but, if too large, they will cause us to stumble, and to trip. But wealth, after all, is a relative thing, since he that has little, and wants less, is richer than he that has much, but wants more. True contentment depends not upon what we have, but upon what we would have; a tub was large enough for Diogenese, but a world was too little for Alexander."

"Imitation is the sincerest of flattery."

"Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness."

"It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies, seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends."

"Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live."

"To sentence a man of true genius to the drudgery of a school, is to put a race horse in a mill."

"Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer."

"Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!"

"If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; If you would know, and not be known, live in a city."

"This tendency, however, to ascribe an universality of genius to great men, led Dryden to affirm, on the strength of two smart satyrical lines, that Virgil could have written a satire equal to Juvenal. But, with all due deference to Dryden, I conceive it much more manifest, that Juvenal could have written a better epic than Virgil, than that Virgil could have written a satire equal to Juvenal. Juvenal has many passages of the moral sublime far superior to any that can be found in Virgil, who, indeed, seldom attempts a higher flight than the sublime of description. Had Lucan lived, he might have rivalled them both, as he has all the vigour of the one, and time might have furnished him with the taste and elegance of the other."

"Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones."

"To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it; the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary."

"Those illustrious men, who, like torches, have consumed themselves, in order to enlighten others, have often lived unrewarded, and died unlamented. But the tongues of aftertimes have done them justice in one sense, but injustice in another. They have honoured them with their praise, but they have disgraced them with their pity. They pity them forsooth, because they missed of present praise, and temporal emolument; things great indeed to the little, but little to the great."

"A feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation."

"With the offspring of genius, the law of parturition is reversed; the throes are in the conception, the pleasure in the birth."

"Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber, and takes out our brains to make room for it."

"Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory—of a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober."

"Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship—never."

"If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself;— all that runs over will be yours."

"We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often to despise what we really fear."

"A free press is the parent of much good in a state. But even a licentious press is a far less evil than a press that is enslaved, because both sides may be heard in the former case, but not in the latter. A licentious press may be an evil, an enslaved press must be so; for an enslaved press may cause error to be more current than wisdom, and wrong more powerful than right; a licentious press cannot efiect these things, for if it give the poison, it gives also the antidote, which an enslaved press withholds. An enslaved press is doubly fatal, it not only takes away the true light, for in that case we might stand still, but it sets up a false one, that decoys us to our destruction."

"Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them."

"Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed."

"Evil and good are God's right hand and left."

"Art is man's nature; nature is God's art."

"Let each man think himself an act of God, His mind a thought, his life a breath of God; And let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds, To show the most of Heaven he hath in him."

"Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths."

"Any heart turned Godward feels more joy In one short hour of prayer, than e'er was raised By all the feasts of earth since its foundation."

"I cannot be content with less than heaven; Living, and comprehensive of all life. Thee, universal heaven, celestial all; Thee, sacred seat of intellective time; Field of the soul's best wisdom: home of truth, Star-throned."

"Men might be better if we better deemed Of them. The worst way to improve the world Is to condemn it."

"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. Life's but a means unto an end; that end Beginning, mean, and end to all things, — God. The dead have all the glory of the world."

"Who never doubted never half believed Where doubt there truth is—'t is her shadow."

"America thou half-brother of the world! With something good and bad of every land."

"Music tells no truths."

"Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden scepter o'er a slumbering world."

"While men are what they are; while they have bad Passions to be roused up: while ruled by men; While all the powers and treasures of a land At beck of the ambitious, wrongs may be Offered, with insult; yea, while rights are worth Maintaining; freedom keeping, or life having, So long dread I, the sword shall shine."

"Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, And tell them; and the truth of truths is love."

"The worst men often give the best advice."