A cucumber should be well-sliced dressed with pepper and vinegar and then thrown out.
It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.
Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
Always set high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
Of all the griefs that harass the distrest Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.
As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich so knowledge which he cannot apply will make no man wise.
The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
Every man wishes to be wise and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.
I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.
I am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
There are charms made only for distant admiration.
Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
He that undervalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.
I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
That fellow seems to posses but one idea and that is the wrong one.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.
An intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword.
No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.
There are in every age new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.
Actions are visible, though motives are secret.
Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.
He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.
Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.
Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
Clear your mind of “cant”.
The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion.
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
