I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something that shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

These be the great Twin Brethren / To whom the Dorians pray.

This is the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he is profoundly ignorant

The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.

The sentinel on Whitehall gate looked forth into the night.

More sinners are cursed at not because we despise their sins but because we envy their success at sinning

Thus our democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic in the world.

Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising.

One of us two, Herminius, / Shall never more go home. / I will lay on for Tusculum, / And lay thou on for Rome!

In Plato’s opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon’s opinion, philosophy was made for man.

And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read

He . . . felt towards those whom he had deserted that peculiar malignity which has, in all ages, been characteristic of apostates.

A single breaker may recede; but the tide is coming in

Few of the many wise apothegms, which have been uttered from the time of the seven sages of Greece to that of poor Richard, have prevented a single foolish action

The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it is worth.

The Puritan hated bear-baiting not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators

And even the ranks of Tuscany / Could scarce forbear to cheer.

An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

A system in which the two great commandments are to hate your neighbor and to love your neighbor’s wife.

Many politicians lay it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story,...

From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, in which the two great commandments were, to hate your neighbor, and to love your neighbor’s wife

The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.

A propensity which, for want of a better name, we will venture to christen Boswellism.

He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child

Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atahualpa.

History, is made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men and woman. All the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions have been extraordinary...

The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.

Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary...

Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action.

In yon strait path a thousand May well be stopped by three

Now who will stand on either hand / And keep the bridge with me?

A church is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favored and cherished.

The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every...

Oh, wherefore come ye forth in triumph from the north, / With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red? / And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout? / And...

The voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve

We must judge of a form of government by it’s general tendency, not by happy accidents

Boswell is the first of biographers

The English Bible / a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.

Obadiah Bind – their – kings – in – chains – and -their – nobles – with – links – of – iron.

The history of England is emphatically the history of progress.

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality

Charles V said that a man who knew four languages was worth four men; and Alexander the Great so valued learning, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him...

There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces; and that is freedom.

Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons

I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty, or civilization, or both

By poetry we mean the art of employing of words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words, what the painter does by...

We have heard it said that five per cent is the natural interest of money.