If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries. |
If a man owns land, the land owns him. |
If a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if has a headache. |
If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner. |
If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, tho' he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. |
If a man's eye is on the Eternal, his intellect will grow |
If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being |
If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply, the population. When it reaches its true law of action, every man that is born will be hailed as essential. |
If I cannot brag of knowing something, then I brag of not knowing it; at any rate, brag. |
If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me. |
If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument |
If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods |
If the red slayer thinks he slays, / Or if the slain think he is slain, / They know not well the subtle ways / I keep, and pass, and turn again. |
If the riches of the Indies, or the crowns of all the kingdom of Europe, were laid at my feet in exchange for my love of reading, I would spurn them all. |
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him |