Biography
"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."
"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."
"True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost."
"The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame"
"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"
"Men spend their lives in anticipations,—in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age."
"Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge."
"If we can advance any propositions that are both true and new, these are indisputably our own, by right of discovery; and if we can repeat what is old more briefly and brightly than others, this also becomes our own, by right of conquest."
"We should have a glorious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire."
"Style is indeed the valet of genius, and an able one too; but as the true gentleman will appear, even in rags, so true genius will shine, even through the coarsest style."
"That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it."
"A volume, therefore, that contains more words than ideas, like a tree that has more foliage than fruit, may suit those to resort to, who want not to feast, but to dream and to slumber."
"With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions."
"That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time."
"It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Mal-information is more hopeless than non-information; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the same direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one. The consequence is, that error, when she retraces her footsteps, has further to go, before she can arrive at the truth, than ignorance."
"Great minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause, without obtaining it, than obtain, without deserving it; if it follow them, it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it. With inferior minds the reverse is observable."
"From the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration."
"Many a man may thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever been able to return the compliment by thanking his rank for his talent."
"Cicero observed to a degenerate patrician, "I am the first of my family, but you are the last of yours" And since his time, those who value themselves merely on their ancestry, have been compared to potatoes, all that is good of them is under the ground."
"The first consideration with a knave, is how to help himself, and the second, how to do it, with an appearance of helping you. Dionysius the tyrant, stripped the statue of Jupiter Olympius, of a robe of massy gold, and substituted a cloak of wool, saying, gold is too cold in winter, and too heavy in summer; — It behoves us to take care of Jupiter"
"Instead of exhibiting talent in the hope that the world would forgive their eccentricities, they have exhibited only their eccentricities, in the hope that the world would give them credit for talent."
"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."
"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."