Quote collection
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"You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do; but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar."
"No wonder, Sir, that he is vain; a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder."
"The liberty of the press is a blessing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our assailants."
"Justice is indispensably and universally necessary, and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct"
"I respect Millar, sir: he has raised the price of literature."
"Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions"
"Those who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason and their spirit the power of persisting in their pur"
"Attainment is followed by neglect, possession by disgust, and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to many another course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last"
"We owe to memory not only the increase of our knowledge, and our progress in rational inquiries, but many other intellectual pleasures"
"I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my spirits"
"Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage."
"A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind, but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind."
"The truth is that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players."
"In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now."
"The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not obliged to speak the truth."
"The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you."
"No one will persist long in helping someone who will not help themselves."
"To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude; it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."
"When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement; as those who undertake to teach others must have undergone some labour in improving themselves, they set a proportionate value on their own thoughts, and wish to enforce them by efficacious expressions; speech becomes embodied and permanent; different modes and phrases are compared, and the best obtains an establishment. By degrees one age improves upon another."
"The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers."