"It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other"
"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open one's mouth and remove all doubt"
"I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world"
"Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out"
"Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity"
"Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable"
"What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more"
"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth"
"No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction"
"Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments"
"Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others"
"To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution"
"There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman"
"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"
"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read"
"I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him"
"Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him"
"No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library"
"Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed"
"Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content"
"Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable"
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome"
"The two offices of memory are collection and distribution"
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good"
"The chief glory of every people arises from its authors"
"The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken"
"The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery"
"That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner"
"Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return"
"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"
"Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure"
"Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy"
"So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something"
"So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other"
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel"
"Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again"
"The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities"
"The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down"
"The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it"
"The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity"
"Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement"
"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company"
"I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just"
"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"
"It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time"
"The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape"
"Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult"
"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford"
"There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible"
