All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.
Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!
Life has been compared to a race, but the allusion improves by observing, that the most swift are usually the least manageable and the most likely to stray from the course. Great abilities have always been less serviceable to the possessors than moderate ones.
I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.
The miscellaneous poetry of this age is nothing like the last; it is very poor.
Aromatic plants bestow no spicy fragrance while they grow; but crush'd or trodden to the ground, diffuse their balmy sweets around.
Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.
A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity.
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
Thus the people, who could not bear the very name of king, readily submitted to a magistrate possessed of much greater power; so much do the names of things mislead us, and so little is any form of government irksome to the people, when it coincides with their prejudices.
Politeness is the result of good sense and good nature.
I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population.
Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.
The more enormous our wealth, the more extensive our fears, all our possessions are paled up with new edicts every day, and hung round with gibbets to scare every invader.
No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it.
Where wealth accumulates, men decay.
I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too. No, sir, these, I protest you, are too hard for me.
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt: It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.
If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
I could not but smile to hear her talking in this lofty strain, but I was never much displeased with those harmless delusions that tend to make us more happy.
Premature consolation is but the remembrancer of sorrow.
A reserved lover, it is said, always makes a suspicious husband.
The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.
I armed her against the censure of the world, showed her that books were sweet unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it.
Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.
Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.
In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, For even though vanquished he could argue still.
When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away?
They may talk of a comet, or a burning mountain, or some such bagatelle; but to me a modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.
Tenderness is a virtue.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey/Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
Our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.
In the end we only regret the chances we didn't take.
The nakedness of the indignant world may be cloathed from the trimmings of the vain.
The beast retires to it's shelter, and the bird flies to it's nest; but the helpless man can only find refuge in his fellow creature.
A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.
The pictures placed for ornament and use, The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, A youth of labor with an age of ease.
Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.
With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.
A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.
There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
In arguing one should meet serious pleading with humor, and humor with serious pleading.
