Quote collection
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"The imaginations excited by the view of an unknown and untravelled wilderness are not such as arise in the artificial solitude of parks and gardens... The phantoms which haunt a desert are want, and misery, and danger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted with his own weakness, and meditation shows him only how little he can sustain, and how little he can perform."
"A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; must show it to the understanding in a clearer view, and display it to the fancy with greater dignity; but either of these qualities may be sufficient to recommend it.... That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit, independently of its references, a pleasing image; for a simile is said to be a short episode."
"It is a common error, and the greater and more mischievous for being so common, to believe that repentance best becomes and most concerns dying men. Indeed, what is necessary every hour of our life is necessary in the hour of death too, and as long as one lives he will have need of repentance, and therefore it is necessary in the hour of death too; but he who hath constantly exercised himself in it in his health and vigor, will do it with less pain in his sickness and weakness; and he who hath practiced it all his life, will do it with more ease and less perplexity in the hour of his death."
"It is our first duty to serve society, and after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls."
"Poetry cannot be translation"
"Nothing concentrates one's mind so much as the realization that one is going to be hanged in the morning!"
"As any custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it; as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same proportion as it alters practice."
"Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination."
"Celestial wisdom calms the mind."
"No knowledge is useless, with the exception of heraldry."
"He who fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his latest excellences or essential qualities."
"Where no man thinks himself under any obligation to submit to another, and, instead of co-operating in one great scheme, every one hastens through by-paths to private profit, no great change can suddenly be made; nor is superior knowledge of much effect, where every man resolves to use his own eyes and his own judgment, and every one applauds his own dexterity and diligence, in proportion as he becomes rich sooner than his neighbour."
"He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich."
"It is astonishing that any man can forbear enquiring seriously whether there is a God; whether God is just; whether this life is the only state of existence."
"People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them."
"No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself"
"Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?"
"There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either."
"The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities."
"Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich."