“As any action or posture, long continued, will distort and disfigure the limbs, so the mind likewise is crippled and contracted by perpetual application to the same set of ideas.”
Thoughtful feeling
Thoughtful Quotes — page 233 of 303
“It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.”
“The uniform necessities of human nature produce in a great measure uniformity of life, and for part of the day make one place like another; to dress and to undress, to eat and to sleep, are the same in London as in the country.”
“Men, however distinguished by external accidents or intrinsick qualities, have all the same wants, the same pains, and, as far as the senses are consulted, the same pleasures.”
“That there is something in advice very useful and salutary, seems to be equally confessed on all hands; since even those that reject it, allow for the most part that rejection to be wrong, but charge the fault upon the unskilful manner in which it is given; they admit the efficacy of the medicine, but abhor the nauseousness of the vehicle.”
“If we consider the manner in which those who assume the office of directing the conduct of others execute their undertaking, it will not be very wonderful that their labours, however zealous or affectionate, are frequently useless. For what is the advice that is commonly given? A few general maxims, enforced with vehemence, and inculcated with importunity, but failing for want of particular reference and immediate application.”
“Few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little effect, as good advice.”
“He that has too much to do will do something wrong.”
“Every man's affairs, however little, are important to himself.”
“Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.”
“Keeping accounts, sir, is of no use when a man is spending his own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account. You won't eat less beef today because you have written down what it cost yesterday.”
“No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself.”
“The botanist looks upon the astronomer as a being unworthy of his regard; and he that is glowing great and happy by electrifying a bottle wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war and peace.”
“There is such a difference between the pursuits of men in great cities that one part of the inhabitants lives to little other purpose than to wonder at the rest. Some have hopes and fears, wishes and aversions, which never enter into the thoughts of others, and inquiry is laboriously exerted to gain that which those who possess it are ready to throw away.”
“Of a thousand shavers, two do not shave so much alike as not to be distinguished.”
“In a Man's Letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirrour of his breast.”
“Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.”
“People adjust their behavior to fit the society they live in. They integrate because they have to. But what they are on the inside doesn't change.”
“2007 was a long time ago, and events do change over long periods of time.”
“I think I'm comfortable making myself, or my speaker, larger than life if I can then cut myself off at the ankles. The way, in "My Major Prize," the speaker does this drippy performance of sadness and poetry for some unnamed prize committee, only he lets us know that it's all a wry game.”