The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.
The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own." [The Sick Chamber (The New Monthly Magazine , August 1830)]
He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
Love turns, with little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal.
The world loves to be amused by hollow professions, to be deceived by flattering appearances, to live in a state of hallucination; and can forgive everything but the plain, downright, simple, honest truth.
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.
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The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. (1778 - 1830)
We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.
Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits.
Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.
Travel's greatest purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
I'm not smart, but I like to observe. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why,
A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.
To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.
The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.
We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.
The best kind of conversation is that which may be called thinking aloud.
Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
Have I not the reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.
Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit. Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits. Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust. Hatred alone is immortal.
Modern fanaticism thrives in proportion to the quanitity of contradictions and nonsense it poures down the throats of the gaping multitude, and the jargon and mysticism it offers to their wonder and credulity.
The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.
The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman is this: The one thinks everything right that is French, while the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.
The old maxim... "there are three things necessary to success in life--Impudence! Impudence! Impudence!
No truly great person ever thought themselves so.
Any one may mouth out a passage with theatrical cadence or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts. But to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task.
