Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.
Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.
The mathematicians are well acquainted with the difference between pure science, which has only to do with ideas, and the application of its laws to the use of life, in which they are constrained to submit to the imperfections of matter and the influence of accidents.
To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the first summons; but such happiness, the greatest genius does not always obtain; and common writers know it only to such a degree, as to credit its possibility. Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.
A married man has many cares, but a bachelor no pleasures.
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.
Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.
To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.
A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.
To make dictionaries is dull work.
He who would govern his actions by the laws of virtue must regulate his thoughts by those of reason.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.
A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking
The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts.
Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.
Misfortunes should always be expected.
He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
Riches exclude only one inconvenience,--that is, poverty.
Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.
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