57 quotes
Avoid all affectation and singularity. What is according to nature is best, and what is contrary to it is always distasteful. Nothing is graceful that is not our own.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Remorse of conscience is like an old wound; a man is in no condition to fight under such circumstances. The pain abates his vigor and takes up too much of his attention.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Envy is of all others the most ungratifying and disconsolate passion. There is power for ambition, pleasure for luxury, and pelf even for covetousness; but envy gets no reward but yexation.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride, of strong sense and feeble reasons, of good eating and ill-living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Thoughts take up no room. When they are right, they afford a portable pleasure, which one may travel with, without any trouble or encumbrance.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Flattery is an ensnaring quality, and leaves a very dangerous impression. It swells a man's imagination, entertains his vanity, and drives him to a doting upon his own person.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
To believe a business impossible is the way to make it so. How many feasible projects have miscarried by despondency, and been strangled in the birth by a cowardly imagination?
Miscellanies upon Moral Subjects (1685)
We must not let go manifest truths because we cannot answer all questions about them.
The end of pleasure is to support the offices of life, to relieve the fatigues of business, to reward a regular action, and to encourage the continuance.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Vanity is a strong temptation to lying; it makes people magnify their merit, over flourish their family, and tell strange stories of their interest and acquaintance.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Dependence goes somewhat against the grain of a generous mind; and it is no wonder that it should do so, considering the unreasonable advantage which is often taken of the inequality of fortune.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Fortitude implies a firmness and strength of mind, that enables us to do and suffer as we ought. It rises upon an opposition, and, like a river, swells the higher for having its course stopped.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Learning gives us a fuller conviction of the imperfections of our nature; which one would think, might dispose us to modesty for the more a man knows, the more he discovers his ignorance.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading. Too much over-charges nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. 'Tis thought and digestion which makes books serviceable, and gives health and vigour to the mind.
Miscellanies upon Moral Subjects (1685)
Despair makes a despicable figure, and descends from a mean original. It is the offspring of fear, of laziness, of impatience; it argues a defect of spirit and resolution, and oftentimes of honesty too.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
I would not despair unless I knew the irrevocable decree was passed; saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by necessity.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
This is brave Bear-Garden language!
A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698)
Humility is the hall-mark of wisdom. Socrates, whom the oracle, that is, the united opinion of the world in which he moved, pronounced to be the wisest man, was content with the title of a lover, rather than a professor, of wisdom.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
He that would relish success to a good purpose should keep his passions cool, and his expectations low; and then it is possible that his fortune might exceed his fancy; for an advantage always rises by surprise, and is almost always doubled by being unlooked for.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Envy [...], like a cold poison, [...] benumbs and stupefies. And thus conscious as it were of its own impotence, it folds its arms in despair, and sits cursing in a corner.
Miscellanies upon Moral Subjects (1685)