To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated...

Is there such depravity in man as that he should injure another without benefit to himself?

Do it now. You become successful the moment you start moving toward a worthwhile goal.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

Perhaps the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words.We frequently fall into...

Getting money is not all a man’s business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

What cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.

A jest breaks no bones

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.

I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.

Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much...

Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life . . . the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.

Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings us nearer to...

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.

Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

[C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it; for, however absurd it may be thought to boast an honour by an act...

To preserve health is a moral and religious duty, for health is the basis of all social virtues. We can no longer be useful when we are not well.

The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence.

I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

At seventy-seven it is time to be earnest.

Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken, themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to...

The triumph of hope over experience

While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, “Sir, I am your most humble servant.” You are not his most...

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious,...

Quoting Samuel Johnson: “Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women...

The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life...