57 quotes
A poet's mind should be clear and unsullied; and the muses being virgins, their performances should agree with their condition.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Goodness is generous and diffusive; it is largeness of mind, and sweetness of temper, — balsam in the blood, and justice sublimated to a richer spirit.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Knowledge is the consequence of time, and multitude of days are fittest to teach wisdom.
Miscellanies upon Moral Subjects (1685)
By reading a man does, as it were, antedate his life, and make himself contemporary with past ages.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Conscience and covetousness are never to be reconciled; like fire and water they always destroy each other, according to the predominancy of the element.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Rhetoric is nothing but reason well dressed and argument put in order.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Everyone has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases.
Miscellanies upon Moral Subjects (1685)
Power, unless managed with gentleness and discretion, does but make a man the more hated. No intervals of good-humor, no starts of bounty, will atone for tyranny and oppression.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Truth is the band of union and the basis of human happiness. Without this virtue there is no reliance upon language, no confidence in friendship, no security in promises and oaths.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
The size of a man's sense and improvement is discovered by his pleasures as much as by anything else.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
There are few things reason can discover with so much certainty and ease as its own insufficiency.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Envy, like a cold prison, benumbs and stupefies; and, conscious of its own impotence, folds its arms in despair.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
People's opinions of themselves are commonly legible in their countenances.
Miscellanies upon Moral Subjects (1685)
Passing too eagerly upon a provocation loses the guard and lays open the body; calmness and leisure and deliberation do the business much better.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
A brave mind is always impregnable. True courage is the result of reasoning.
Miscellanies upon Moral Subjects (1685)
Idleness is an inlet to disorder, and makes way for licentiousness. People that have nothing to do are quickly tired of their own company.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Self-conceit is a weighty quality, and will sometimes bring down the scale when there is nothing else in it. It magnifies a fault beyond proportion, and swells every omission into an outrage.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Without discretion, people may be overlaid with unreasonable affection, and choked with too much nourishment.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
The road to heaven lies as near by water as by land.