Quote collection
1.7K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased."
"The natural progress of the works of men is from rudeness to convenience, from convenience to elegance, and from elegance to nicety."
"There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt."
"To tell your own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly."
"Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use."
"All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it."
"Books have always a secret influence on the understanding."
"He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day will often bring to his task attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren topic till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce."
"When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land."
"Guilt once harbored in the conscious breast, intimidates the brave, degrades the great."
"The synonyme of usury is ruin."
"Round numbers are always false."
"Whoever envies another confesses his superiority."
"Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?"
"Language is the dress of thought; every time you talk your mind is on parade."
"The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion."
"No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous."
"The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope."
"Don't tell me of deception; a lie is a lie, whether it be a lie to the eye or a lie to the ear."
"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings."