He thought he was a wit, and he was half right. |
He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young. |
Health and cheerfulness mutually beget each other |
Husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency. |
I consider time as an in immense ocean, in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up |
I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable. |
I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of winter |
I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: ''What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.'' |
I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species |
I remember when our whole island was shaken with an earthquake some years ago, there was an impudent mountebank who sold pills which (as he told the country people) were very good against an earthquake. |
I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beautines of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike. |
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. |
I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair. |
If men would consider not so much where they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world |
If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is. |