Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength.
Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.
He that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad, will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are three things that never stand still.
Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
Life isn’t like a book. Life isn’t logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.
We ask advice, but we mean approbation.
To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports us – when we succeed, it betrays us.
He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men’s heads.
Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.
Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.
When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.
Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.
Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.
Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us – never cease to instruct – never cloy.
Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.
The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.
He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men’s heads.
Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship – never.
Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it’s set a rolling it must increase.
The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.
Mystery is not profoundness.
Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.
Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength.
The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.
Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship – never.
Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.
If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.
None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.
The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.
The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.
Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.
Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.
The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.
Men’s arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.
Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it’s set a rolling it must increase.
If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.
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