Quote collection
34 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Reverence is an ennobling sentiment; it is felt to be degrading only by the vulgar mind, which would escape the sense of its own littleness by elevating itself into an antagonist of what is above it. He that has no pleasure in looking up is not fit so much as to look down. Of such minds are mannerists in Art; in the world, tyrants of all sorts."
"It is a hard matter for a man to lie all over, nature having provided king's evidence in almost every member. The hand will sometimes act as a vane, to show which way the wind blows, even when every feature is set the other way; the knees smite together and sound the alarm of fear under a fierce countenance; the legs shake with anger when all above us calm."
"Humility is also a healing virtue; it will cicatrize a thousand wounds, which pride would keep forever open."
"He who has no pleasure in looking up, is not fit so much as to look down."
"I have no ambition to shine beyond my abilities."
"I cannot believe that any man who deserved fame ever labored for it; that is, directly. For, as fame is but the contingent of excellence, it would be like an attempt to project a shadow, before its substance was obtained."
"I am inclined to think from my own experience that the difficulty to eminence lies not in the road, but in the timidity of the traveler."
"It is my greatest misfortune to be too lazy, and by the few mortifications I have already set with on that account I predict many evils in my future life. I have always the inclination to do what I ought; but by continually procrastinating for tomorrow the business of today, I insensibly delay, until at the end of one month I find myself in the same place as when I began it."
"In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others."
"If an Artist love his Art for its own sake, he will delight in excellence wherever he meets it, as well in the work of another as in his own."
"Injustice allowed at home is not likely to be corrected abroad."
"The most intangible, and therefore the worst, kind of a lie is a half truth. This is the peculiar device of a conscientious detractor."
"If the whole world should agree to speak nothing but truth, what an abridgment it would make of speech! And what an unravelling there would be of the invisible webs which men, like so many spiders, now weave about each other!"
"Nothing gets you behind faster than trying to keep up with people who are already there."