We never read without profit if with the pen or pencil in our hand we mark such ideas as strike us by their novelty, or correct those we already possess.
Sloth is the torpidity of the mental faculties; the sluggard is a living insensible.
In the sallies of badinage a polite fool shines; but in gravity he is as awkward as an elephant disporting.
Nobility should be elective, not hereditary.
The ill usage of every minute is a new record against us in heaven.
The rich and luxurious may claim an exclusive right to those pleasures which are capable of being purchased by pelf, in which the mind has no enjoyment, and which only afford a temporary relief to languor by steeping the senses in forgetfulness; but in the precious pleasures of the intellect, so easily accessible by all mankind, the great have no exclusive privilege; for such enjoyments are only to be procured by our own industry.
Wit, to be well defined, must be defined by wit itself; then it will be worth listening to.
Silence is a trick when it imposes. Pedants and scholars, churchmen and physicians, abound in silent pride.
Time is never more misspent than while we declaim against the want of it; all our actions are then tinctured with peevishness. The yoke of life is certainly the least oppressive when we carry it with good-humor; and in the shades of rural retirement, when we have once acquired a resolution to pass our hours with economy, sorrowful lamentations on the subject of time misspent and business neglected never torture the mind.
There appears to exist a greater desire to live long than to live well! Measure by man's desires, he cannot live long enough; measure by his good deeds, and he has not lived long enough; measure by his evil deeds, and he has lived too long.
Fools with bookish knowledge art children with edged weapons; they hurt themselves, and put others in pain.
Family pride entertains many unsocial opinions.
The quarter of an hour before dinner is the worst that suitors can choose.
One ought to love society, if he wishes to enjoy solitude. It is a social nature that solitude works upon with the most various power. If one is misanthropic, and betakes himself to loneliness that he may get away from hateful things, solitude is a silent emptiness to him.
Many species of wit are quite mechanical; these are the favorites of witlings, whose fame in words scarce outlives the remembrance of their funeral ceremonies.
The lust of dominion innovates so imperceptibly that we become complete despots before our wanton abuse of power is perceived; the tyranny first exercised in the nursery is exhibited in various shapes and degrees in every stage of our existence.
Unless the habit leads to happiness the best habit is to contract none.
Take care to be an economist in prosperity. There is no fear of your being one in adversity.
The love of solitude, when cultivated in the morn of life, elevates the mind to a noble independence, but to acquire the advantages which solitude is capable of affording, the mind must not be impelled to it by melancholy and discontent, but by a real distaste to the idle pleasures of the world, a rational contempt for the deceitful joys of life, and just apprehensions of being corrupted and seduced by its insinuating and destructive gayeties.
Economy is an excellent lure to betray people into expense.
Age is suspicious but is not itself often suspected.
Contempt is frequently regulated by fashion.
Laugh as loud as you please at your companion's wit; do not even smile at his folly.
The weak may be joked out of anything but their weakness.
Books afford the surest relief in the most melancholy moments.
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