46 quotes
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)
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)
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)
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)
True courage is the result of reasoning. A brave mind is always impregnable. Resolution lies more in the head than in the veins, and a just sense of honor and of infamy, of duty and of religion, will carry us farther than all the force of mechanism.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
If wrecks and ruins and desolation of kingdoms are marks of greatness, why do we not worship a tempest, and erect a statue to the plague? A panegyric upon an earthquake is every jot as reasonable as upon such conquests as these.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Not that the moderns are born with more wit than their predecessors, but, finding the world better furnished at their coming into it, they have more leisure for new thoughts, more light to direct them, and more hints to work upon.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Emulation is a handsome passion; it is enterprising, but just withal. It keeps a man within the terms of honor, and makes the contest for glory just and generous. He strives to excel, but it is by raising himself, not by depressing others.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
The lower your senses are kept, the better you may govern them. Appetite and reason are commonly like two buckets, — when one is at the top, the other is at the bottom. Now of the two, I had rather the reason-bucket be uppermost.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Of all sorts of flattery, that which comes from a solemn character and stands before a sermon is the worst-complexioned. Such commendation is a satire upon the author, makes the text look mercenary, and disables the discourse from doing service.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Envy is an ill-natured vice, and is made up of meanness and malice. It wishes the force of goodness to be strained, and the measure of happiness abated. It laments over prosperity, and sickens at the sight of health. It oftentimes wants spirit as well as good-nature.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Modesty was designed by Providence as a guard to virtue, and that it might be always at hand it is wrought into the mechanism of the body. It is likewise proportioned to the occasions of life, and strongest in youth when passion is so too.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Those who despise fame seldom deserve it. We are apt to undervalue the purchase we can-not reach, to conceal our poverty the better. It is a spark which kindles upon the best fuel, and burns brightest in the bravest breast.
Treasury of Thought (1881)
Hope is a vigorous principle; it is furnished with light and heat to advise and execute; it sets the head and heart to work, and animates a man to do his utmost. And thus, by perpetually pushing and assurance, it puts a difficulty out of countenance, and makes a seeming im-possibility give way.
Treasury of Thought (1881)