A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

men do not suspect faults which they do not commit

Tea’s proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.”(Essay on Tea, 1757.)

Round numbers are always false

Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.

I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man has surely some latent sense for which this place affords...

Friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness and its permanence from the other.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we...

Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend.

Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

Nothing […] will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.

People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which...

Hell is paved with good intentions.

Prudence keeps life safe, but it does not often make it happy.

To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.

Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and confess...

Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel.

What signifies protesting so against flattery! when a person speaks well of one, it must either be true or false, you know; if true, let us rejoice in his good opinion; if he lies, it...

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.” –

Human life is every where a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a...

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.