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.

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.