The dew of compassion is a tear.

Adversity is the first path to truth; He who hath proved war, storm, or woman’s rage, Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty, Has won the experience which is deemed so weighty

Her great merit is finding out mine — there is nothing so amiable as discernment.

Such hath it been – shall be – beneath the sun the many still must labor for the one

She had consented to create again / That Adam, called `the happiest of men’.

The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. The first to welcome, foremost to defend.

What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.

He makes a solitude, and calls it – peace

All tragedies are finished by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage

America is a model of force and freedom and moderation – with all the coarseness and rudeness of its people.

Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship.

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind: / All are not fit with them to stir and toil, / Nor is it discontent to keep the mind / Deep in its fountain.

Though sages may pour out their wisdom’s treasure, There is no sterner moralist than Pleasure

War’s a brain spattering windpipe splitting art.

Men are the sport of circumstances when it seems circumstances are the sport of men.

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.

I loathe that low vice curiosity

Nor be, what man should ever be, / The friend of Beauty in distress?

Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, and broke the die.

Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.

The arena swims around him – he is gone,/ Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

The best way will be to avoid each other without appearing to do so — or if we jostle, at any rate not to bite.

All are inclined to believe what they covet, from a lottery-ticket up to a passport to Paradise.

But he, with first a start and then a wink, / Said, `There’s another star gone out, I think!’

I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff-box from an emperor.

Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.

Talk six times with the same single lady and you may get the wedding dress ready

Tis said that persons living on annuities are longer lived than others

I thought it would appear / That there had been a lady in the case.

Not to admire is all the art I know.

The reading or non-reading a book will never keep down a single petticoat.

The would-be wits and can’t-be gentlemen, I leave them to their daily “”tea is ready,”” Smug coterie and literary lady

O Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper, which makes bank credit like a bark of vapor.

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! / Where burning Sappho loved and sung, / Where grew the arts of war and peace, / Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! / Eternal summer gilds...

As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only serves to wash ambition’s hands.

Though women are angels, yet wedlock’s the devil

For Freedom’s battle once begun, / Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son, / Though baffled oft is ever won.

Joy’s recollection is no longer joy, while sorrow’s memory is sorrow still

Dear Doctor, I have read your play, / Which is a good one in its way, – / Purges the eyes and moves the bowels, / And drenches handkerchiefs like towels.

When we two parted / In silence and tears,/ Half broken-hearted / To sever for years, / Pale grew thy cheek and cold, / Colder thy kiss;/ Truly that hour foretold / Sorrow to this.

Sometimes we are less unhappy in being deceived by those we love, than in being undeceived by them.

All who joy would win – Must share it – happiness was born a twin

I like his holiness very much, particularly since an order, which I understand he has lately given, that no more miracles shall be performed.

I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?

It is useless to tell one not to reason but to believe /you might as well tell a man not to wake but sleep.

The world is a bundle of hay, / Mankind are the asses who pull; / Each tugs it a different way, / And the greatest of all is John Bull.

Who loves, raves.

Every day confirms my opinion on the superiority of a vicious life — and if Virtue is not its own reward I don’t know any other stipend annexed to it.

In England the only homage which they pay to Virtue – is hypocrisy.

Poetry should only occupy the idle.