Quote collection
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"Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is "affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men." It is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God."
"In general I ask for books that make use of learning, not those that build it up."
"Knowledge is an excellent drug; but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay, if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep."
"In my opinion it is the happy living, and not, as Antisthenes said, the happy lying, in which human happiness consists."
"A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awake his vigor, and to keep it from growing faint and rusty. And there is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule and discipline."
"Who is only good that others may know it, and that he may be the better esteemed when 'tis known, who will do well but upon condition that his virtue may be known to men, is one from whom much service is not to be expected."
"Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but when puerile and beardless, confused and mixed with theirs."
"The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom."
"Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience."
"I had rather fashion my mind than furnish it."
"We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep; but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds."
"That is why Bias jested with those who were going through the perils of a great storm with him and calling on the gods for help: "Shut up," he said, "so that they do not realize that you are here with me."
"And therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain. Therefore, Farewell."
"Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment."
"The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise; so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own; and it is by order and good conduct, and not by force, that it is to be acquired."
"The recognition of virtue is not less valuable from the lips of the man who hates it, since truth forces him to acknowledge it; and though he may be unwilling to take it into his inmost soul, he at least decks himself out in its trappings."
"The land of marriage has this peculiarity: that strangers are desirous of inhabiting it, while its natural inhabitants would willingly be banished from thence."
"The archer who overshoots his mark does no better than he who falls short of it."
"The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up."
"Anyone who does not feel sufficiently strong in memory should not meddle with lying."