They that are loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them. It is probable that he who is killed by lightning hears no noise; but the thunder-clap which follows, and which most alarms the ignorant, is the surest proof of their safety.
Never join with your friend when he abuses his horse or his wife, unless the one is about to be sold, the other to be buried.
We must be careful how we flatter fools too little, or wise men too much, for the flatterer must act the very reverse of the physician, and administer the strongest dose only to the weakest patient.
Those that will not permit their wealth to do any good for others. . . cut themselves off from the truest pleasure here and the highest happiness later.
Tomorrow! It is a period nowhere to be found in all the registers of time, unless, perchance, in the fool's calendar.
Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right without them.
Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.
The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulchral of all his other passions, as they successively decay.
Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.
We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when performed by ourselves.
Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.
There are some men who are fortune's favorites, and who, like cats, light forever on their legs.
Fashion is the veriest goddess of semblance and of shade; to be happy is of far less consequence to her worshippers than to appear so; even pleasure itself they sacrifice to parade, and enjoyment to ostentation.
No propagation or multiplication is more rapid that that of evil, unless it be checked; no growth more certain.
A leveller has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again tomorrow.
If all seconds were as averse to duels as their principals, very little blood would be shed in that way.
Worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them.
The hand that unnerved Belshazzar derived its most horrifying influence from the want of a body, and death itself is not formidable in what we do know of it, but in what we do not.
Death is like thunder in two particulars; we are alarmed, at the sound of it; and it is formidable only from that which preceded it.
Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it; or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us.
Natural good is' so intimately connected with moral good, and natural evil with moral evil, that I am as certain as if I heard a voice from heaven proclaim it, that God is on the side of virtue. He has learnt much, and has not lived in vain, who has practically discovered that most strict and necessary connection, that does and will ever exist between vice and misery, and virtue and happiness.
Some men who know that they are great are so very haughty withal and insufferable that their acquaintance discover their greatness only by the tax of humility which they are obliged to pay as the price of their friendship.
Speaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants--both know too much of him.
Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun, and the two are never far apart.
Power, like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation.
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