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.
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,
Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
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.
Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
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.
The best kind of conversation is that which may be called thinking aloud.
The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.
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.
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 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.
Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.
Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner -- and then to thinking!
The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
Learning is its own exceeding great reward.
Even a highwayman, in the way of trade, may blow out your brains, but if he uses foul language at the same time, I should say he was no gentleman.
Features alone do not run in the blood; vices and virtues, genius and folly, are transmitted through the same sure but unseen channel.
The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.
Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.
Half the business of modern education is taken up in learning not to be ignorant; a process peculiarly unfavorable both to strength of mind and pregnancy of imagination...
He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.
As is our confidence, so is our capacity
The present is an age of talkers, and not doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and doat on past achievements.
Never so sure our rapture to create As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate.
We hate old friends: we hate old books: we hate old opinions; and at last we come to hate ourselves.
Rules and models destroy genius and art.
Grace is rhwe absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incogruity.
The path of genius is free, and its own
The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.
Sacrifices are no sacrifices when they are repaid a thousand fold.
I bear the creature no ill-will, but still I hate the very sight of it.
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and endure very much
The most silent people are generally those who think most highly of themselves.
The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.
Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because they excel.
Words are the only things that last forever; they are more durable than the eternal hills
