Quote collection
222 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Nature. As the word is now commonly used it excludes nature's most interesting productions-the works of man. Nature is usually taken to mean mountains, rivers, clouds and undomesticated animals and plants. I am not indifferent to this half of nature, but it interests me much less than the other half."
"People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy."
"It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation."
"He was born stupid, and greatly increased his birthright."
"How often do we not see children ruined through the virtues, real or supposed, of their parents?"
"It is not sufficiently considered in the hour of exultation, that all human excellence is comparative; that no man performs much but in proportion to what other accomplish, or to the time and opportunities which have been allowed him."
"You cannot have a thing "matter" by itself which shall have no motion in it, nor yet a thing "motion" by itself which shall exist apart from matter; you must have both or neither. You can have matter moving much, or little, and in all conceivable ways; but you cannot have matter without any motion more than you can have motion without any matter that is moving."
"We all love best not those who offend us least, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them."
"There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas."
"Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime."
"The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation."
"The wish to spread those opinions that we hold conducive to our own welfare is so deeply rooted in the English character that few of us can escape its influence."
"The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation."
"The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth."
"Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him."
"Whatsoever we perpetrate, we do but row; we are steered by fate."
"The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them."
"Friends are like money, easier made than kept."
"Business should be like religion and science; it should know neither love nor hate."
"To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead."