Satire is an abuse of wit. It corrects few evils.
To quote copiously and well, requires taste, judgment, and erudition, a feeling for the beautiful, an appreciation of the noble, and a sense of the profound.
We take life too seriously: the office of wit is to correct this tendency.
In general, inquiry ceases when we adopt a theory. After that, we overlook whatever makes against it, and see and think, and talk and write, only in its favor. Indeed, when we have a snug, comfortable theory, to which we are much attached, they appear to us as a very mean set of facts that will not square with it.
All power is indeed weak compared with that of the thinker. He sits upon the throne of his Empire of Thought, mightier far than they who wield material sceptres.
A strong will deals with the hard facts of life as a sculptor with his marbles, making them facile and yielding to his purposes, and conquering their stubbornness by a greater stubbornness in himself.
The cure for tender sensibilities is to make more of our objects and less of our selves.
It is curious to what a degree one may become attached to a fine tree, especially when it is placed where trees are rare.
Every war involves a greater or less relapse into barbarism. War, indeed, in its details, is the essence of inhumanity. It dehumanizes. It may save the state, but it destroys the citizen.
It is invidious to distinguish particular men as adventurers: we are all such.
The use we make of our fortune determines its sufficiency. A little is enough if used wisely, and too much if expended foolishly.
However much of time, labor, or other means it takes to establish a reputation, it frequently happens that it requires nearly as much to maintain it. One who has written a good book, is expected on all occasions to "talk like a book." Or, if one has achieved an act of heroism, he is expected to perform acts of heroism for the edification of all who approach him. There are people who can never believe they see a lion unless they hear him roar.
The questions most furiously discussed are those which have in them a basis of truth, and yet a large admixture of errors. We inconsiderately take hold of, and mistakingly support or oppose them, as either wholly true or wholly false.
He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself. The judicious quoter, too, helps on what is much needed in the world, a freer circulation of good thoughts, pure feelings, and pleasant fancies.
Wit is better as a seasoning than as a whole dish by itself.
A good thought is indeed a great boon, for which God is to be first thanked; next he who is the first to utter it, and then, in a lesser, but still in a considerable degree, the friend who is the first to quote it to us. Whoever adopts and circulates a just thought, participates in the merit that originated it.
Ambitious princes value inherited kingdoms not so much as conquered provinces.
It is safer to quote what is written than what is spoken. What a man writes it is fair to presume he believes as a matter of general conviction, but it is not so with what he utters in the freedom of conversation. In that he may only express the feeling of the moment, and not his settled judgment, or matured opinion.
Wit, like poetry, is insusceptible of being constructed upon rules founded merely in reason. Like faith, it exists independent of reason, and sometimes in hostility to it.
We repose too much upon the actual, when we should be seeking to develop the possibilities of our being. It is true of nearly all of us, that what we have done is little compared with what we might have accomplished, or may hereafter effect.
In ambition, as in love, the successful can afford to be indulgent toward their rivals. The prize our own, it is graceful to recognize the merit that vainly aspired to it.
Love delights in paradoxes. Saddest when it has most reason to be gay, sighs are the signs of its deepest joy, and silence is the expression of its yearning tenderness.
Qualities not regulated run into their opposites. Economy before competence is meanness after it. Therefore economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.
To cultivate a garden is to walk with God.
Fortune, like a coy mistress, loves to yield her favors, though she makes us wrest them from her.
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